Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Saturday said the Senate should not act on Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court until after “the American people select their next president and the next Congress.”
“Supreme Court decisions affect our everyday lives, and the Constitution was designed to give voters a voice on who makes those decisions,” Biden tweeted Saturday, just after President Trump nominated Barrett to fill the vacancy left by late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
AMY CONEY BARRETT ACCEPTS SUPREME COURT NOMINATION, PLEDGES TO ‘FAITHFULLY AND IMPARTIALLY’ DISCHARGE DUTIES
“The Senate shouldn’t act until after the American people select their next president and the next Congress,” Biden continued. “Americans deserve to be heard.”
Biden, this week, called Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s efforts to push a nominee through the Senate before Election Day an “exercise in raw political power.”
Biden pointed to the controversy surrounding former President Barack Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy left by late Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016, and argued that “having made this their standard when it served their interest, they cannot, just four years later, change course when it doesn’t serve their ends.”
Senate Republicans refused to hold a hearing or a vote on Garland’s nomination, citing the imminent 2016 presidential election.
Biden has refused to release a list of potential Supreme Court picks should he be elected president, saying that he would make his nominations to the high court on a bipartisan basis.
BIDEN SAYS SENATE SHOULD WAIT ON TRUMP SUPREME COURT NOMINEE DESPITE PAST COMMENTS
“If I win, I will make my choice for the Supreme Court—not as part of a partisan election campaign—but as prior presidents did,” Biden said last week. “Only after consulting Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Senate—and seeking their advice before I ask for their consent.”
He added: “As everyone knows, I have made it clear that my first choice for the Supreme Court will make history as the first African American woman justice.”
The Trump campaign has criticized Biden for failing to release a list of his own, suggesting he is “hiding” something.
“We know he’s a tool of the radical left, so the only answer must be that he doesn’t want Americans to see the radical leftists he would appoint, with judicial histories littered with extremist rulings on issues like abortion, religious freedom, immigration, Second Amendment rights and government regulation,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told Fox News this week.
Meanwhile, Biden’s running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said that Trump’s choice to nominate Barrett would “harm millions of Americans.”
