Showdown over Supreme Court nominee
Democrats have the votes to block President Trump’s pick, Neil Gorsuch, but Republicans vow to rewrite Senate rules to get their way.
WASHINGTON — Democrats on Monday claimed the votes they needed to block President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, but the victory was fleeting, setting up a historic showdown with Republicans who intend to rewrite Senate rules and muscle Neil Gorsuch onto the high court.
The coming fight was assured as the bitterly divided Judiciary Committee voted 11-9, along party lines, to send Gorsuch’s nomination to the full Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has vowed he will be confirmed on Friday.
Short of the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural hurdles, McConnell is ready to lead Republicans in a unilateral voting change so significant in the rules-conscious Congress that it’s been dubbed the “nuclear option,” lowering the threshold for an up-or-down vote to a filibuster-proof simple majority in the 100-member Senate.
On Monday, Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Chris Coons, D-Del.; and Mark Warner, D-Va., indicated that they would oppose Gorsuch and vote against cloture — or the motion to end a filibuster that is required to hold a final up-ordown confirmation vote.
Coons also emphasized that Republicans’ treatment of former President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, left lasting scars after they denied him a hearing following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last year.
The long-term consequences of the coming confrontation could be profound, as the rules change that Republicans intend to enact would apply to future Supreme Court nominees, too, allowing them to be voted onto the court without any input from the minority party.
For Republicans and Trump, Gorsuch’s confirmation will be a moment of triumph, a bright spot in a troubled young administration that’s failed on the legislative front with the health care bill and is under investigation over Russia connections.
Gorsuch’s confirmation will also be vindication for McConnell’s strategy of refusing to fill Scalia’s seat last year, instead leaving it open for the next president, even though few imagined then that the president would be Trump.
The showdown over the nuclear option, expected on the Senate floor Thursday, is likely to be accompanied by handwringing from senators bemoaning the decay of the chamber’s traditions of bipartisanship and comity.
But both parties are to blame. When the Democrats were in the majority, they removed the 60-vote threshold for lowercourt nominees in 2013 when Republicans were blocking Obama picks to a critical federal court. Republicans said then that Democrats would regret it.
Gorsuch will be confirmed “and he should be,” the No. 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, said during Monday’s debate. “If Judge Gorsuch is unacceptable to our Democratic colleagues, there will never be a nominee by this president that you will find acceptable. Never.”
Gorsuch now counts 55 supporters in the Senate: the 52 Republicans, along with three moderate Democrats from states Trump won last November — Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana. A fourth Senate Democrat, Michael Bennet from Gorsuch’s home state of Colorado, has said he will not join in the filibuster against Gorsuch but has not said how he will vote on the nomination.
Democrats say the Republicans’ treatment of Garland was worse than anything they ever did, and with Trump in the White House, they are under intense pressure from liberal voters to oppose the president on every front. That gives them little leeway to let Gorsuch onto the court unchallenged, even though all the current justices were confirmed without filibusters, aside from a halfhearted effort against Justice Samuel Alito.