Senate Democrats have launched a furious attack on Republicans for refusing a hearing or vote on whoever Barack Obama nominates to the supreme court.

The Democratic minority leader, Harry Reid, expressed anger and disbelief after GOP members of the judiciary committee insisted the next president must fill the vacancy.

“Before the president even named a nominee to the supreme court, the Republicans are doing what everyone thought was impossible,” Reid said. “It is real?”

Describing the Republican tactics as “hard to comprehend”, Reid said Senator Chuck Grassley is set to “go down as the most obstructionist judiciary chair in the history of our country”, worse even than those in the civil rights era. “Is this the legacy that he wants?”

GOP members emerged from a closed-door meeting on Tuesday to announce that they would not vote on any Obama nominee to the US supreme court, nor even hold a committee hearing on a nominee.

“No hearing, no vote,” said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina as he emerged from a closed-door meeting with the majority leader, Mitch McConnell.

“We believe the American people need to decide who is going to make this appointment rather than a lame-duck president,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate’s No 2 Republican and, like Graham, a member of the judiciary committee.



Hearings would be “a waste of time”, added Senator John McCain of Arizona.

As a rationale for their decision, Republicans pointed to a 1992 speech by Vice-President Joe Biden, then the chairman of the judiciary committee, in which Biden said that in a presidential election year the Senate should “not consider holding hearings until after the election”.



“Instead, it would be our pragmatic conclusion that once the political season is under way, and it is, action on a supreme court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is over,” said Biden, then a Delaware senator.

As it turned out, there was no opening on the court that year.

“They’re threatening to abandon the Senate’s responsibilities,” Reid said on response on Tuesday. “It’s what Donald Trump and Ted Cruz want. Remember Trump said, ‘Delay, delay, delay,’ the supreme court nominee, so they’re doing that, and I’m sure Trump couldn’t imagine they’re taking that to a new height.

“It’s wrong and the American people, I believe, will not stand for this. The Senate needs to do its job.”

Reid blamed Republican hardliners influenced by money for going against the constitution. “They’ve hardened their position on this because they’ve been given directions by the right wing. There’s a lot of money that is driven their way because they think it’s going to help them. When I talk about the Trump-Cruz wing of the Republican party, I’m not making that up.”

Senator Chuck Schumer added: “It’s a sad day when the world’s greatest deliberative body won’t even deliberate. Our message today to our Republican colleagues is simple: do your job.”

Even the most divisive nominees for the court have received a hearing before the judiciary committee, and the election-year decision to deny such a session is a sharp break with the Senate’s traditional “advise and consent” role. A committee review and a hearing is the first step in the process.

Earlier in the day, McConnell said his party would not permit a vote on any supreme court nominee submitted by Obama and would instead “revisit the matter” after the presidential election in November.



“Presidents have a right to nominate just as the Senate has its constitutional right to provide or withhold consent,” the majority leader said in a speech on the Senate floor. “In this case, the Senate will withhold it.”

Scalia’s unexpected 13 February death ignited a major fight in Washington over whether Obama should be able to choose his replacement in a presidential election year. McConnell offered one of the first salvoes; Scalia had only been dead for a few hours when McConnell announced that he would oppose replacing him before the election.

But McConnell’s remarks on Tuesday were his first explicit statement that he would oppose a Senate vote.

Later, asked if he would agree to meet a nominee, McConnell said: “This decision ought to be made by the next president, whoever is elected. I don’t know the purpose of such a visit. I would not be inclined to take one myself.”

He added: “You’d have to go back to 1888, when Grover Cleveland was president, to find the last time a vacancy created in a presidential election year was approved by the Senate of a different party.”

McConnell was at the center of a battle a decade ago over Democratic filibusters of judicial nominees of President George W Bush and, after Democrats took over the chamber in 2007, repeatedly said Bush’s judges deserved up-or-down votes.