Biden says nomination to replace Justice Ginsburg should happen after voters ‘pick the president’

WILMINGTON, Delaware — Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden says the winner of the November election should pick a successor to the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Calling Ginsburg a “beloved figure,” Biden told reporters: “There is no doubt — let me be clear — that the voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider.”

Biden noted that the Republican-led Senate in 2016 refused to consider President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, to fill the vacancy created when Justice Antonin Scalia died in February of that year.

Biden said that Scalia died about with “almost 10 months to go” before the election and that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cited it being an election year as the reason a hearing shouldn’t take place.

President Donald Trump ended up replacing Scalia with Neil Gorsuch.

Biden says he hopes the coming days are about “the loss of the justice and her enduring legacy.” Biden chaired the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 1993 when Ginsburg was confirmed to the high court.

Ginsburg died Friday of cancer complications at age 87.