The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Blumenthal announces opposition to Gorsuch
HARTFORD >> U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal is just the latest Senate Democrat to announce his opposition to the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch.
Blumenthal announced his opposition at a Friday press conference at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.
“Instead of being forthcoming, he avoided my questions at every turn,” Blumenthal said. “We’re left with the conclusion that he passed the Trump litmus test and that he is in effect an acolyte of those hard right interest groups that screened and suggested his name.”
After four days of hearings, Blumenthal said there is still doubt that Gorsuch would be committed to those “core beliefs and principles that
are at the heart of our constitutional system — rights of privacy, worker safety, consumer protection, women’s health care.”
Republicans would need to convince eight Democrats to vote yes on a procedural vote ahead of Gorsuch’s nomination in order to break a filibuster, which seems inevitable at this point.
Blumenthal said he would do everything possible to block Gorsuch’s nomination “including use of the filibuster.”
Blumenthal said any Supreme Court nominee should be approved by more than a razor thin majority: “He should have an overwhelming bipartisan consensus in his favor.”
Blumenthal suggested that instead of changing the Senate rules to allow for a simple majority for a procedural vote, “they should change the nominee.”
He said if Republicans decide to reduce the number of votes necessary for cloture that will “change the Senate in fundamental ways.”
He said this issue is too important.
“Each seat on the Supreme Court is potentially a swing vote on core constitutional principles,” Blumenthal said. “And I have to vote my conscience and stand for what I believe in.”
Two of President Richard Nixon’s Supreme Court nominees were rejected 45-55 and 45-51, and one of President Ronald Reagan’s nominees was rejected by a vote of 42-58, according to records kept by the U.S. Senate.
Another one of Reagan’s nominees withdrew his name after admitting he smoked marijuana with his students while he was a professor at Harvard Law School. One of President George W. Bush’s nominees withdrew her name from consideration.
Then in 2016, the Republican-controlled Senate refused to take up the nomination of Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, Connecticut’s junior senator, also said he would vote against Gorsuch’s nomination.
“He admirably claims to rest his decision on the law rather than on political views, (while) his consistent support for the powerful over the powerless does not seem coincidental,” Murphy said of Gorsuch.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on Gorsuch’s nomination on Monday, which means the U.S. Senate could vote on his nomination as soon as next week.