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NEW CASTLE, Del. (Reuters) – Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said on Friday there is “no question” that the winner of the November presidential election should choose a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“There is no question, let me be clear, that the voters must choose the president and the president must choose the judge for the Senate to consider,” Biden told reporters after learning of Ginsburg’s death.
Biden’s remarks appear to set the stage for a partisan fight for the judiciary that could dominate the less than seven weeks remaining until the November 3 presidential election.
Ginsburg, a staunch liberal on the Supreme Court since 1993, died Friday at age 87, giving President Donald Trump a narrow window to expand the court’s conservative majority with a third appointment during a tough reelection fight. .
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he intends to act on any nominations Trump makes. Biden’s comments indicate that he and the party will fight against such a move.
McConnell’s stance reverses the position he took four years ago, when he refused to act on the election-year nomination of Democratic President Barack Obama of centrist appeals court judge Merrick Garland to replace Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died. in February 2016.
Some Democrats accused McConnell and his fellow Republicans of “stealing” a Supreme Court seat by blocking Garland’s appointment. Biden, who was Obama’s vice president, has said he wished the Democrats had been “much tougher” on McConnell during that fight.
McConnell’s explained its position in a statement on Friday, saying that in 2016 the Senate and the White House were controlled by different parties, while now both are controlled by Republicans. Democrats have called McConnell’s hypocrisy.
The former Democratic vice president learned of Ginsburg’s death while flying home from a campaign trip to Minnesota and delivered brief remarks to reporters at a New Castle, Delaware airport, without answering questions. As a senator, Biden presided over Ginsburg’s confirmation hearings for the position in 1993.
“Ruth Bader Ginsburg represented us all,” Biden said. “She has been absolutely consistent and dependable and a voice for freedom and opportunity for all.”
Ginsburg’s death could drastically upset the ideological balance of the court, which already had a 5-4 conservative majority, moving it further to the right. The matter pushed the courts to the center of an election that had been dominated by the coronavirus and its economic and public health consequences.
Trump released a list of potential nominees on Sept. 9 to fill any future Supreme Court vacancies in a move designed to bolster support among conservative voters. Biden has vowed to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court, but has so far resisted revealing her own list of nominees.
(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw in New Castle, Delaware, and Trevor Hunnicutt in New York; Edited by Aurora Ellis and William Mallard)
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