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 Senate Republicans have used Biden's 1992 comments as ammunition
for their opposition to holding hearings on any Supreme Court
nominee until Obama's successor takes office next January after the
Nov. 8 presidential election.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reiterated that position
after Obama on March 16 selected Garland, an appellate judge and
former prosecutor, to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on
Feb. 13.
Biden spoke at Georgetown University law school, seeking to increase
pressure on Republicans to allow confirmation hearings and a vote.
Biden emphasized Garland's moderate record and that Republicans
previously had suggested Garland would be a consensus Supreme Court
candidate.
 In June 1992, when the possibility existed of a retirement on the
nine-member court, then-Senator Biden declared on the Senate floor
that if a vacancy occurred that election year, Republican President
George H.W. Bush should not put forth a nominee until after the
November presidential election.
If Bush did so, Biden added, "the Senate Judiciary Committee should
seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the
nomination until after the political campaign season is over."
Biden, then chairman of that committee, was speaking hypothetically
and no vacancy materialized.
He said on Thursday his words 24 years ago had been selectively
quoted by Republicans. He noted that he made them a year after the
contentious 1991 confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas and that
they were intended to address "the dangers of nominating an extreme
candidate without proper Senate consultation."
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Biden scoffed at Republicans' current reference to a "Biden rule,"
meaning no hearing in a presidential election year. He said no such
rule exists.
Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, the current Judiciary Committee
chairman, accused Biden of trying to "rewrite history" on the 1992
remarks.
"While the vice president and others have tried to recast his 1992
speech as merely a call for greater cooperation," Grassley said,
"they neglect to mention that such cooperation, according to
Chairmen Biden, was to occur 'in the next administration,' and only
after the presidential election."
In a Quinnipiac University poll of 1,451 registered voters released
on Thursday, 62 percent said the Senate should consider Garland's
nomination rather waiting for a new president; 33 percent said
senators should wait.
(Reporting by David Morgan and Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will
Dunham)
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