# Filling a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 17, 2016, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/filling-a-u-s-supreme-court-vacancy/749251 "2016-03-17T11:46:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bizerta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@bizerta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizerta)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/filling-a-u-s-supreme-court-vacancy/749251/1 "2016-03-17T11:46:00Z")
What the typical/average amount of time between a vacancy (death or retirement announcement) and the nomination by the President? What is the typical amount of time between nomination and approval (or rejection)? How many have been nominated for Justice but failed to be confirmed by the senate? The President probably has a plethora of contingency plans for unexpected events. There have been 112 Justices v. 44 Presidents. Statistically, a President will fill 2+ vacancies during his tenure. Does (or Why doesn’t) the President ever have one or two pre-vetted candidate names awaiting such a possiblity? TV news is playing the Joe Biden 1992 speech in which Biden wants the Justice approval process delayed until the 1992 election. Had a justice been nominated and how did Biden vote on that issue? ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2016, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/filling-a-u-s-supreme-court-vacancy/749251/2 "2016-03-17T21:34:15Z")
The website of the Senate has a [complete list](http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/nominations/Nominations.htm) of all nominations (confirmed as well as rejected) ever. Looking at it, it seems to me as if the standard nowadays is to have a confirmation within a few months of nomination, but in the olden days it wasn’t rare to have confirmation within a couple of days, or even the very same day. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/filling-a-u-s-supreme-court-vacancy/749251/3 "2016-03-18T03:27:21Z")
Bear in mind that the Senate didn’t even hold confirmation hearings for the first century and a bit. The first confirmation hearing was when Wilson nominated Brandeis in 1916, and he did not appear in person. The first nominee to appear in person was Frankfurter. [A History Of Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106528133) ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/filling-a-u-s-supreme-court-vacancy/749251/4 "2016-03-18T03:33:23Z")
> [@bizerta](#): > > TV news is playing the Joe Biden 1992 speech in which Biden wants the Justice approval process delayed until the 1992 election. Had a justice been nominated and how did Biden vote on that issue? You can see more details about the text of his speech here. The speech is full of hedges, so it’s not a clear-cut denunciation of the idea of nominating a SC replacement before an election. But, my interpretation is that he would have favored at the time holding off on a nomination until after the election. Note, that he doesn’t really say until after the next Presidential term starts, he points to the election as the time period in question. On the other hand, from the article, it appears that there was no vacancy at the time of his statement. > **[In Context: The 'Biden Rule' on Supreme Court nominations in an election year](https://www.politifact.com/article/2016/mar/17/context-biden-rule-supreme-court-nominations/)** > > Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell invoked the so-called "Biden Rule" to justify why the Senate should not consider ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/filling-a-u-s-supreme-court-vacancy/749251/5 "2016-03-18T04:07:05Z")
There’s also the other part of the speech that isn’t getting so much play: [QUOTE=Senator Biden] “I believe that so long as the public continues to split its confidence between the branches, compromise is the responsible course both for the White House and for the Senate,” Biden also said at the time. “ **If the President consults and cooperates with the Senate or moderates his selections absent consultation, then his nominees may enjoy my support** as did Justices Kennedy and Souter. But if he does not, as is the President’s right, then I will oppose his future nominees as is my right.” [/quote] [Biden in ’92: No election-season Supreme Court nominees](http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/joe-biden-supreme-court-nominee-1992-219635#ixzz43DwyGzwk) So overall, it seems that Biden was calling for a moderate nominee from the President, which is certainly consistent with what Obama has done by nominating Garland. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/filling-a-u-s-supreme-court-vacancy/749251/6 "2016-03-18T14:36:45Z")
Yes, the Biden speech was June 25, 1992. And as the article in the link mentions, it was in response to the nastiness of the Clarence Thomas nomination fight, just a warning - don’t use the nomination fight to inflame partisan politics. There’s a big difference between “4 months to election” and “10 months to election”. Or, there used to be until the last few election cycles.