Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill Says She’ll Vote No On Supreme Court Nominee

Toomey said that he has no regrets about blocking Garland’s nomination and that if voters had disagreed, they could have thrown out the Republican majority in the Senate and elected a Democrat for president.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote on sending the nomination to the Senate floor. Senate Democrats need 41 of their caucus members to agree to filibuster Gorsuch to prevent his nomination from coming up for a vote.

Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota announced in statements Thursday that they would vote for Judge Neil Gorsuch.

In an interview on 5NEWS This Morning, Sen.

Even if all of those backed the judge and opposed a filibuster, they’d still need support from two others.

At least one veteran Democratic senator clearly understands the predicament she and her colleagues face.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said last week that Democrats would filibuster the nomination.

Ayotte said – as she did many times during her 2016 campaign against eventual victor lHassan – that as a senator, she “worked across the aisle”. The New Jersey senator told reporters that he’s still deciding on Gorsuch, but “when I come to a conclusion on how I’m voting on Gorsuch, I’ll decide on how I’m voting in the whole process”. Supreme Court would be a colossal blunder. “This is a time, though, where you have such an exceptionally qualified nominee, who has conducted himself so well and with dignity and respect”.

Heitkamp says she expects Gorsuch to follow through on his promise of an independent judiciary that “acts as a proper check and balance on the other two branches of government”.

At the same time, Gorsuch noted that he’s been part of a unanimous panel in 97 percent of the approximately 2,700 cases he’s helped decide; 99 percent of the time, he said, he’s been in the majority. And there’s not enough votes to confirm him. The news that two red state Democrats will support his ultra-conservative nominee – over Democratic objections that the seat for former Justice Antonin Scalia’s successor was stolen by Republicans from Barack Obama – is surely welcome news for a battered Trump.

“I can not and will not support a nominee that allows dark and dirty anonymous money to continue to flood unchecked into our elections”, she said.

But Ayotte defended her position again on Friday. Courts have no power to enforce their decisions: Popular acceptance is essential, and if judges are seen as mere politicians in robes, it is possible that groups will disregard court rulings, resort to “self-help”, and wait for the next election where they hope to prevail.

Manchin touted Gorsuch’s qualifications, calling him an “honest and thoughtful man”.

“We are going to get him confirmed one way or the other”, Boozman said.

No, actually, it is reality.

Republicans are expected to stand firm behind President Donald Trump’s pick and indicate they are prepared to end the filibuster for high court nominees – even if they don’t directly say that. “The majority leader has made that clear”. “This judge deserves to be on the court”.

During the last few days of March there was a lot of buzz on Capital about whether enough Democrats would reject a filibuster against Gorsuch to let his nomination go through without a change in the chamber’s rules.