Republicans in the U.S. Senate on Thursday deployed the so-called “nuclear option” to pave the way for confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court—a vote expected later today.
Republicans voted to allow confirmation with a simple majority vote of 51 votes, as opposed to 60, after Democrats in the Senate began an unprecedented filibuster of Gorsuch’s nomination. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called the Democrats’ opposition to Gorsuch—a highly qualified jurist—“extreme escalation in the Left’s never-ending drive to politicize the courts and the confirmation process.”
In the meantime, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer continues to whine, “It doesn’t have to be this way. The answer is not to change the rules, it’s to change the nominee.” By now, however, nearly everyone paying attention to the process knows that it was the Democrats who used exactly the same procedure under President Barack Obama to get their appointments to the lower federal courts confirmed.
As we’ve said before: “Elections matter, Sen. Schumer.”
