Republican president, Republican-controlled Senate
“I rise today as the leader of majority party of the Senate, but I do not rise for party. I rise for principle. I rise for the principle that judicial nominees with the support of the majority of Senators deserve up-or-down votes on this floor. Debate the nominee for 5 hours, debate the nominee for 50 hours, vote for the nominee, vote against the nominee, confirm the nominee, reject the nominee, but in the end vote.”
-Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), floor statement, May 18, 2005
“The majority in the Senate is prepared to restore the Senate’s traditions and precedents to ensure that regardless of party, any president’s judicial nominees, after full and fair debate, receive a simple up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. It is time to move away from advise and obstruct and get back to advise and consent.”
-Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), floor statement, May 18, 2005
“The duties of the Senate are set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Nowhere in that document does it say the Senate has a duty to give presidential nominees a vote. It says appointments shall be made with the advice and consent of the Senate. That is very different than saying every nominee receives a vote.”
-Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), floor statement, May 19, 2005
“The President of the United States has discharged his constitutional obligation under Article II, Section 2 to nominate justices of the Supreme Court. He has chosen a truly outstanding nominee. It is now our job to provide advice and consent. In doing so, we should follow basically three principles. No. 1, we should treat Judge [John] Roberts with dignity and with respect. No. 2, we should have a fair process. And No. 3, we should complete that process with either an up-or-down vote in time for the Court to be at full strength for its new term beginning October 3 of this year. These principles are simple and they are sound. Unfortunately, the Senate has not always followed them.”
-McConnell, floor statement, May 20, 2005
Democratic president, Republican-controlled Senate
“Until now, even through all the partisan battles of recent decades, the Senate’s constitutional duty to give a fair and timely hearing and a floor vote to the president’s Supreme Court nominees has remained inviolable.”
-Reid, op-ed in The Washington Post, Feb. 15, 2016 (election year)
“We’re just not going to move this nominee because it’s going to allow the next president to fill this seat. We’ve lost a great, conservative, brilliant justice. … As a matter of fact, the tradition is not to confirm someone in the last year and as [Senator] Pat Leahy, when he chaired the committee, has chaired the Judiciary Committee for many years, he just refused time and again to move nominees.”
-Sessions, interview on Fox News’s “The Kelly File,” Feb. 16
“To leave the seat vacant at this critical moment in American history is a little bit like saying, ‘God forbid something happen to the president and the vice president, we’re not going to fill the presidency for another year and a half.’ ”
-Vice President Biden, interview with Minnesota Public Radio, Feb. 18
“Given that we are in the midst of the presidential election process, we believe that the American people should seize the opportunity to weigh in on whom they trust to nominate the next person for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. It is today the American people, rather than a lame-duck president whose priorities and policies they just rejected in the most-recent national election, who should be afforded the opportunity to replace Justice Scalia.”
-Sens. McConnell and Grassley, op-ed in The Washington Post, Feb. 18
