Vice President Joe Biden hit back Thursday against Republican senators who have cited a “rule” bearing his name as reasoning behind their resistance against holding a confirmation vote on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee.
In a speech at Georgetown Law School, Biden pointed to his eight years as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, explaining that he never — ever — got in the way of a potential nomination to the nation’s highest court.
“I hear all this talk about the ‘Biden rule,'” the vice president said, referencing the phrase coined by obstinate Republicans who claim the former senator once suggested Supreme Court nominees shouldn’t be confirmed during the last year of a president’s term.
“It’s frankly ridiculous. There is no Biden Rule. It doesn’t exist,” he added.
“(There) was only one rule I ever followed on the Judiciary Committee, that was the Constitution’s clear rule of advice and consent,” Biden said, explaining that the current GOP-led blockade of Merrick Garland, whom Obama nominated earlier this month for the court vacancy created by Antonin Scalia’s death, “could lead to a genuine constitutional crisis.”
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