Democrats today have amassed enough support to block a U.S. Senate confirmation vote on President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, but Republicans have vowed to change the Senate rules to ensure the conservative judge gets the lifetime job.
As the Judiciary Committee moved toward sending Gorsuch’s nomination to the full Senate, Senator Christopher Coons became the 41st Democrat to announce support for a procedural hurdle requiring a super-majority of 60 votes in the 100-seat Senate to allow a confirmation vote.
That sets up a showdown later this week that will likely lead to a reinterpretation of Senate rules, so that the nominations of Supreme Court justices can be advanced with 51-vote majorities, rather than the preliminary 60-vote threshold that has long applied to high court nominations.
“If we have to, we will change the rules,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said during Monday’s Judiciary Committee meeting. “It looks like we’re going to have to.”
Graham’s comment came after two senior Democrats on the Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said they’d vote no on cloture for Gorsuch. They were seen as Senate traditionalists who may have voted yes, at least for the preliminary vote, in order to avoid what’s long been known as “the nuclear option.”
