Biden to point to record in Supreme Court fight

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday will point to his years as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman to cast Republicans' election-year Supreme Court blockade as a dangerous new escalation of partisanship — hoping to put the focus on his record on high-court nominations and not his much-discussed remarks.

In a speech at Georgetown Law School, Biden will note that as chairman and ranking Democrat on the committee he helped usher eight Supreme Court nominees through the committee.

In the Senate floor speech, then-committee Chairman Biden seemed to endorse the notion of blocking any Supreme Court nominee put forward in the throes of the election season, a version of the strategy now thwarting Obama nominee Merrick Garland.

Biden plans to warn of the danger of allowing the diminished court to deadlock on major issues, kicking cases back to regional lower court and threatening to "fragment our national unity."

"The longer this high court vacancy remains unfilled, the more serious a problem we will face — a problem compounded by turbulence, confusion, and uncertainty about our safety and security, our liberty and privacy, the future of our children and grandchildren," Biden will say, according to excerpts.