Joe Biden address "Given the unusual rancor that prevailed in the Thomas nomination, the need for some serious reevaluation of the nomination and confirmation process and the overall level of bitterness that sadly infects our political system and this Presidential campaign already, it is my view that the prospects for anything but conflagration with respect to a Supreme Court nomination this year are remote at best. Of Presidents Reagan's and Bush's last seven selections of the Court, two were not confirmed and two more were approved with the most votes cast against them in the history of the United States of America.
We have seen how, Mr. President, in my view, politics has played far too large a role in the Reagan-Bush nominations to date. One can only imagine that role becoming overarching if a choice were made this year, assuming a Justice announced tomorrow that he or she was stepping down.
Should a Justice resign this summer and the President move to name a successor, actions that will occur just days before the Democratic Presidential Convention and weeks before the Republican Convention meets, a process that is already in doubt in the minds of many will become distrusted by all. Senate consideration of a nominee under these circumstances is not fair to the President, to the nominee, or to the Senate itself.
Mr. President, where the Nation should be treated to a consideration of constitutional philosophy, all it will get in such circumstances is partisan bickering and political posturing from both parties and from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. As a result, it is my view that if a Supreme Court Justice resigns tomorrow, or within the next several weeks, or resigns at the end of the summer, President Bush should consider following the practice of a majority of his predecessors and not--and not--name a nominee until after the November election is completed. The Senate, too, Mr. President, must consider how it would respond to a Supreme Court vacancy that would occur in the full throes of an election year. It is my view that if the President goes the way of Presidents Fillmore and Johnson and presses an election-year nomination, the Senate Judiciary Committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over."
