Updates From Senator Hatches Office

Hatch: Vice President Biden’s Speech on Supreme Court Vacancy Rewrites History

Washington, D.C.— Senator Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving member and former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued the following response to Vice President Biden’s speech today on the current Supreme Court vacancy: 

"Try as he might, Vice President Biden can't re-invent his statement in 1992 that the Senate should defer the confirmation process until after the election. He did not even try to distinguish 1992 from today’s very similar circumstances. In fact,  each of the factors leading then-Chairman Biden to recommend deferring the confirmation process for a Supreme Court nomination in 1992 is present, in equal or greater measure, today. 

• The presidential campaign, including voting, is well underway. 
• Different parties control the nomination and confirmation phases of the appointment process.
• This presidential campaign is, as Chairman Biden said in 1992, “one of the bitterest, dirtiest Presidential campaigns we will have seen in modern times.” 
• The judicial confirmation process has degraded even further from its broken state in 1992. 
• As Chairman Biden said in 1992, “partisan bickering and political posturing” would overwhelm the serious consideration required for a Supreme Court nomination.

 “If the Constitution requires a hearing for every nominee, then Vice President Biden violated the Constitution in 1992 when, as Judiciary Committee Chairman, he denied a hearing to more than 50 Republican nominees. If the Constitution requires a floor vote every nominee, then he sought to violate the Constitution nearly 30 times by voting to deny floor votes to Republican nominees.”