Confirming Judge Gorsuch within these first 100 days was imperative. The GOP finally did something required of them. The absurd tantrums by the Democrats continue to highlight their irrelevance. Now all the GOP has to do is take the reins on more issues. But the problem with that, of course, is the fact they they. too, are part of the bureaucracy which is genuinely threatened by Trump reforms. Our work as the grassroots has never been more important. This next year is key if we are to save the country from disconnected, malevolent bureaucrats.
Republicans triggered the “nuclear option” Thursday, changing the rules to ensure that Supreme Court nominees can never be blocked by partisan filibusters and paving the way for Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s first Supreme Court pick, to be approved later this week.
After weeks of threatening, Democrats mounted the first successful partisan filibuster of a high court nominee in U.S. history, and Republicans — following a script Democrats pioneered four years ago — retaliated by changing the rules and eliminating the power of the filibuster to hold up any nominees.
“This will be the first — and last — partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nomination,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed, saying he didn’t relish changing the rules but argued Democrats forced him into it.
The fallout from Thursday’s vote also threatens to poison the Senate for the foreseeable future, worsening already abysmal relations between Republicans and Democrats who have feuded over every step of Mr. Trump’s agenda.
But Republicans said Judge Gorsuch, who has won rave reviews from both liberal and conservative legal scholars, was worthy of the fight.
If going nuclear is restoring the Senate rules to what they were before 2003 which didn’t allow any judicial filibuster whatsoever, and following the Constitution which doesn’t even mention filibustering, then so be it. Most people don’t really care.
It’s my understanding that the rules were always a simple majority from 1789 until 1970. And of course it was the Dems that changed the rules.