Anyone heard of the 'Biden rule'?

In the March 21 Your Views section, Donald Sutherland writes to comment on Mitch McConnell's refusal to bring confirmation of President Obama's recent nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court by saying "Senator McConnell should get over his partisan hissy fit, do his job and permit the Supreme Court to become fully functional."

Although I am no fan of McConnell, he has stated he is simply enacting "The Biden Rule" in his decision to not bring the nominee to a vote in the Senate. What is the Biden Rule you might ask?

Vice President Biden was quoted from the Senate floor in 1992 , not long after Bill Clinton won the Democratic nomination to challenge then-President George H.W. Bush as saying, "Politics has played far too large a role in the Reagan-Bush nominations to date. One can only imagine that role becoming overarching if a choice were made this year, assuming that a justice was announced tomorrow that he or she was stepping down. A process that is already in doubt in the minds of many will become distrusted by all. Senate consideration of a nominee under these circumstances is not fair to the president, the nominee or to the Senate itself."

If we can, let's just put all of this in perspective by saying it is simply politics as usual.

David Georgeson

St. Charles