Top Senate Republican says no vote on Obama's Supreme Court pick

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the Republican-controlled senate would not permit a vote on President Barack Obama's any pick for the Supreme Court justice.

"Presidents have a right to nominate just as the Senate has its constitutional right to provide or withhold consent," McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor.

"In this case, the Senate will withhold it," he concluded.

It was the first time that McConnell expressed explicitly his opposition to a Senate vote on Supreme Court nomination after the sudden death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia earlier this month, when Obama's presidency has only 11 months to go.

In his speech last week, Obama appealed to Senate Republicans to "rise above day-to-day politics," adding that he planned to pick an "indisputably" qualified Supreme Court justice nominee.

After Obama's remarks, Senator Charles Grassley, the Republican chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee, left open the possibility that he would hold hearings on Obama's nominee to replace Scalia. However, McConnell's remarks on Tuesday could suggest that even a hearing was now opposed by the Republican Party leadership.

Meanwhile, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden found himself caught in the partisan fight over Scalia's successor.

In his speech Tuesday, McConnell quoted a 1992 Senate speech by Biden, then chairman of the Judiciary Committee, in which he said the Senate should not consider holding Supreme Court nomination hearings till after the presidential election. Endit