Biden Says Ginsburg Replacement Should Wait Until After Election

(Bloomberg) -- Democratic nominee Joe Biden said the Senate should wait to confirm a Supreme Court justice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg until after the November election.

“There is no doubt -- let me be clear -- that the voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice,” Biden said at the New Castle County airport in Delaware upon returning from a campaign stop in Minnesota. “This was the position that the Republican Senate took in 2016 when there were almost 10 months to go before the election. That’s the position the United States Senate must take today and the election’s only 46 days off.”

Ginsburg died Friday at 87 due to complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Earlier Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would schedule a vote to confirm a nominee to succeed Ginsburg shortly after President Donald Trump names one.

With the election less than two months away, McConnell said the Senate would act to fill the vacancy, even though he spent most of 2016 denying a confirmation hearing to President Barack Obama’s pick to fill a vacancy on the high court.

Biden, who said he presided over Ginsburg’s confirmation hearing as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, hailed the “fierce and unflinching” Ginsburg.

He said she led “the effort to provide equality for women in every field.”

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