Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky rekindled the acrimonious debate over control of the Supreme Court when he acknowledged the Senate would consider a presidential nominee to fill a vacancy on the court if one occurred in 2020. Democrats were apoplectic given the role played by McConnell in blocking consideration of President Barack Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, to fill the seat vacated by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016.
At the time, McConnell defended Republicans' decision not to hold a confirmation hearing for Garland, much less grant him an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor, by invoking the so-called Biden Rule. Named after then-Sen. Joe Biden, the rule referred to the informal practice, begun in 1992, whereby the Senate refrained from considering Supreme Court nominees during a presidential election year. McConnell argued that the decision on who should replace Scalia, one of the court's leading conservatives and a crucial vote on controversial cases, "should be made by the president that the people elect in the election that's now underway." However, when asked what he thought Republicans would do if a vacancy opened up on the Supreme Court in 2020, also a presidential election year, McConnell responded, “Oh, we'd fill it.”
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