The Senate voted 52-48 along party lines on April 6 to approve a rule change to end the Democrats’ attempt to block a vote on Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.
The rule change, also called the “nuclear option,” lowers the number of votes needed to end a filibuster from a 60 vote supermajority to a 51 vote simple majority.
Republicans control the Senate 52-48. They were a handful of votes short of getting the 60 vote support they needed to end the block.
With the rule change, they can advance Gorsuch to his final confirmation on April 7.
Gorsuch was nominated by President Donald Trump to replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia who died more than a year ago.
Senate Democrats say the “nuclear option” breaks from long-standing tradition, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says that the move is precisely to “restore the norms and traditions of the Senate.”
“Judge Gorsuch is independent and fair. He’s beyond qualified and he’ll make a stellar addition to the Supreme Court. Hardly anyone in the legal community seems to argue otherwise. And yet, our Democratic colleagues appear poised to block this incredible nominee with the first successful partisan filibuster in American history. It would be a radical move, something completely unprecedented in the history of the Senate,” said McConnell.
The Republicans refused to consider President Obama’s equally qualified Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, saying that a president could not nominate a justice in the final year of his term. This was also unprecedented in history.
