WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama is looking for a Supreme Court nominee with past Republican support, Vice President Joe Biden said, offering some of the first indications of the White House criteria in trying to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
Biden, in a radio interview airing Thursday, disagreed with Republicans who insist Obama let that decision fall to the next president, who will take office in January.
"In order to get this done, the president is not going to be able to go out - nor would it be his instinct, anyway - to pick the most liberal jurist in the nation and put them on the court," the vice president told Minnesota Public Radio. "There are plenty of judges (who) are on high courts already who have had unanimous support of the Republicans."
There are signs some Republicans are softening their stance, despite Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's insistence Obama should not even make a nomination.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the Senate should hold hearings on an Obama nominee. Sen. Susan Collins, of Maine, told the Portland Press Herald a nominee would get her "full attention" and senators "should carry out our constitutional duty."
Sandra Day O'Connor, who retired as a justice in 2006, urged the vacancy on the nine-member court be filled expeditiously. O'Connor, nominated by President Ronald Reagan, told Fox 10 in Phoenix she disagreed with those calling to wait for the next president.
"I think we need somebody there now to do the job," she said, "and let's get on with it."
But others Republicans held firm.
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said it seemed clear Obama would not get a nominee confirmed unless he were to pick someone in Scalia's mold, preserving the court's ideological balance.
"For that reason, it might be just as well not to have a hearing that would sort of - might mislead the American people into thinking that this is just about the qualifications of the candidate," Toomey said in an interview with the Associated Press. "Because it's bigger than that."
Republican leaders were working to turn the tables on Democrats. GOP aides circulated a comment that current Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, made during a 2005 debate over judges nominated by Republican President George W. Bush.
"Nowhere in (the Constitution) does it say the Senate has a duty to give presidential appointees a vote," Reid said at the time. "It says appointments shall be made with the advice and consent of the Senate. That is very different than saying every nominee receives a vote."