Frustrated Republicans prepare for the nuclear option

McConnell and other Senate Republicans have indicated they are willing to use the nuclear option to break a Democratic filibuster to confirm Gorsuch, whose nomination the Senate Judiciary Committee voted Monday to recommend to the full Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., files cloture, the first step in Senate procedure to start a series of votes and pass a legislative item in the chamber.

THE FACTS: The senators are ignoring their blockade past year of Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the same seat Gorsuch will occupy if he’s confirmed this week.

Democrats remain incensed by McConnell’s decision.

Reuters reported Monday that McCain said he would support the filibuster rule change, “because we need to confirm [Supreme Court nominee Neil] Gorsuch”, McCain said.

Here is a bipartisan solution: The Democrats agree to vote for Judge Gorsuch, who is clearly qualified to serve on the Court. Republicans control the Senate 52-48.

Democrats on Monday amassed the votes needed to sustain the filibuster, prompting Republicans to move toward changing the rules. Conservative advocacy groups separately have pursued a multimillion-dollar campaign backing Gorsuch. He said his opposition to Gorsuch, who he is said was “excruciatingly evasive”, is based on the nominee’s unwillingness to answer questions during his confirmation hearings in the committee. You know, when the Democrats were in the majority, they got rid of the filibuster for lower court nominations after Republicans blocked all of Obama’s nominees to the federal courts.

They also cited the treatment a year ago of Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, who was blocked by Republicans after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016.

McConnell said that as long as he was the Senate’s majority leader, he would never remove the ability to mount a filibuster against legislation, as opposed to presidential appointments. “All we’ll do faced with this filibuster is even that up so the Supreme Court confirmation process is dealt with just like it was throughout the history of the country”. Michael Bennet of Colorado. “The name he forgot to mention was Merrick Garland”.

The GOP had all the time in the world to interview Garland and determine if he was the correct Supreme Court candidate, and it failed to do so. Some of the more liberal justices are among the oldest on the court, so more court openings could pop up.

Pressed by reporters on whether he will vote for the nuclear option, Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley refused to say yes. They blame Democrats for ratcheting up a confirmation battle over a jurist that they say is well within the mainstream. Since President Trump began his term, the conservative wing’s popularity has plummeted.

Collins said she was “very troubled” that Democrats “put us in the situation” and that they’ll regret it one day because the rule change will make it easier for presidents to get more ideological justices approved for the Supreme Court down the road.

The 2013 rules change nonetheless came back to haunt Democrats with the arrival of the new administration, leaving them with no tools at their disposal to block Trump’s nominees to the cabinet.