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        Biden to Call for Confirmation Hearings on Supreme Court Nominee

   by VOA News

   U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is calling on the Senate to give
   President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee a fair hearing, despite
   Republican pledges not to confirm a new justice until a new president
   is in office.

   Biden is to speak later Thursday at the Georgetown University Law
   Center in Washington, D.C. In excerpts of his remarks, he says during
   his time as ranking Democrat of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was
   responsible for eight Supreme Court nominees, and he says all of them
   got a committee hearing and an up or down vote.

   He says the purpose of the Supreme Court is to unify rulings on
   constitutional law so all states operate under the same law, rather
   than what he called a "patchwork Constitution." He says under such a
   system, the rich and powerful rule through manipulation of geographical
   differences.

   Biden calls on the Senate to overcome what he calls its "dysfunction"
   rather than allow it to spread to the Supreme Court.

   ''President Obama has nominated Merrick Garland, Chief Judge of the
   U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to fill the space on the
   Supreme Court left by the death last month of Antonin Scalia.

   Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, has vowed not to
   hold hearings on any Supreme Court nominee until the next U.S.
   President is in office early next year.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/biden-hearings-supreme-court-nominee/
   3252405.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/biden-hearings-supreme-court-nominee/3252405.html