Months before the 1992 presidential election, Joe Biden urged fellow U.S. senators to shut down the nomination process and block President George H.W. Bush’s judicial picks from a confirmation vote.
Today, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, called on the Senate to follow what he dubbed “the Biden Rules.”
The lawmakers should leave Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court empty until a new president nominates a successor, Grassley said.
“It’s the principle, not the person,” Grassley argued, quoting at length from remarks made 24 years ago by Biden when the vice president was a senator from Delaware.
Grassley said the Judiciary Committee should listen to Biden’s reminder “of the Senate’s constitutional authority to provide, or withhold, consent, as the circumstances require.”
In a floor speech June 25, 1992, Sen. Joe Biden, then chairman of the Judiciary Committee, argued that....
