Dems block Trump court pick as GOP readies ‘nuclear option’

The rule change is likely to guarantee the appointment of Neil Gorsuch on Friday, but it could mark a significant change to the way the US Senate operates, allowing important decisions to be taken by a simple majority.

Republicans defended the move, praising Gorsuch’s credentials and criticizing Democrats for their obstruction.

Republican leaders are poised to move Thursday to change the Senate’s filibuster rules so that Democrats can no longer block Gorsuch’s confirmation.

If confirmed as expected on Friday, Gorsuch would restore the court’s 5-4 conservative majority.

“The dark deed is done”, Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, wrote on Twitter.

While Democrats opposed the rule change and accused Republicans of a power grab, it was their party that first resorted to the nuclear option when they controlled the Senate in 2013.

“The core topic (of my all-night speech) is we are destroying the integrity of our core instructions in this nation”.

“I think it will clearly lead to more extreme appointments on both sides, and I think it’s a awful mistake that we will regret for many, many years to come”, McCain said. But other Democrats argued that there might not be another Supreme Court vacancy before Democrats retake the White House or the Senate, and the risk of demoralizing their base voters – who want Democrats to be uncompromising in their resistance to Trump- wasn’t worth it.

“And this fallout will be dangerously, and perhaps disastrously, radioactive for the Senate in years to come”, he said. At that point, if numbers hold, Democrats will reject Gorsuch and Republicans will have the opportunity to exercise the “nuclear option”.

That means Democrats have enough votes to sustain the filibuster. And the rules stayed intact.

Eight years later, President Barack Obama was in office and the Democrats had the majority.

Democrats view the opposition to Gorsuch, who last month was grilled for more than 20 hours on Capitol Hill by the Senate Judiciary Committee, as an appropriate response to the thwarting of President Barack Obama’s choice to fill the vacant seat. Is it worth a Senate that will have even less reason to come to a bipartisan consensus?

But with the 55-45 tally, Republicans fell short of the 60-vote super-majority needed to overcome the Democratic procedural tactic called a filibuster and proceed to a vote in which senators could confirm him by a simple majority. Now they are and the partisan grievances have piled up even higher.

Many Democrats remain furious over the treatment a year ago of Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the seat left vacant with the February 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

“The majority team in this chamber chose to steal a Supreme Court seat”, Merkley said.

Before entering the Senate chamber, Sen. John McCain told CNN.

The legislative manoeuvre – called the nuclear option because it is so extreme – enables Mr Gorsuch to be approved by a simple majority in the 100-member Senate, where Republicans control 52 seats.

All these potential upsides are worth the risk of losing the filibuster, because McCaskill’s hope that Republicans won’t remove the filibuster in a future Supreme Court battle is a fantasy. Those talks yielded no settlement. Advocates of changing the Senate rules on filibusters say it may be a necessary evolution for a polarized Congress to function in the modern era, while opponents say it threatens to send the nation further down a path where the two parties are so opposed that bipartisanship and centrism are relics of another era. McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham of SC say presidents could choose nominees with more extreme views because they wouldn’t need bipartisan support for confirmation.

“I think it will clearly lead to more extreme appointments on both sides and I think it’s a bad mistake that we will regret for many, many years to come”.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, supported the rules change in 2013, but later said he regretted it. Now he’s leading the Democratic filibuster. But on Wednesday, he railed against his Republican colleagues from the Senate floor.

The maneuvering played out with much hand-wringing from all sides about the future of the Senate, as well as unusually bitter accusations and counter-accusations as each side blamed the other for bringing the Senate to this point.