Senator Charles Grassley was one of 70 who voted in favor to confirm the appointment of Attorney General Merrick Garland, after refusing to hold a hearing on Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 2016.

Senator Grassley tells KCII that Garland is qualified for this cabinet position, and that he didn’t feel the Senate questioned his qualifications in 2016, but that Republican leaders were following what he refers to as a “Biden or Schumer rule” for not considering an appointment during an election year. Grassley goes on to defend the Senate’s appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court one week before Election Day last fall, “Since 1888 when you had a president of one party and a Senate of the other party, presidents didn’t get approved during a presidential election year. So in 2016 we had a Democratic president and a Republican Senate. In 2020, we had a Republican president and a Republican Senate.”

Grassley is referring to President Grover Cleveland’s successful nomination of Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller when the Senate was controlled by the opposite party in 1888. According to the American Bar Association, that is the only confirmation out of 10 Supreme Court vacancies that have occurred during a presidential election year when the president and Senate were from opposite parties. There is no Constitutional rule solidifying this claim.