Teh One Who Knocks
04-06-2017, 04:24 PM
By Judson Berger - FOX News
http://i.imgur.com/6KVjNK0.jpg
Senate Republicans deployed the so-called “nuclear option” Thursday afternoon in a bid to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, moving to overcome a Democratic filibuster just minutes earlier.
The Senate initially voted 55-45 on a motion to end debate on Gorsuch, with four Democrats breaking ranks; it needed 60 to succeed. Known as a filibuster, this vote triggered Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to go “nuclear.”
This means he is trying to change Senate precedent so that the Senate can move to a final roll call with just a simple majority of 51 votes, as opposed to 60. If he succeeds, a final confirmation vote would be held Friday.
The dramatic and fast-paced chain of events is poised to significantly change the way the Senate does business. Each party blames the other for the escalation and the breakdown in the Senate’s parliamentary decorum, and the impact could be felt for years, if not decades, to come.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, kicking off Thursday’s session, blasted Democrats for the filibuster attempt and accused them of driving the upper chamber to this point. He said their opposition to Gorsuch isn’t about the nominee but “the man who nominated him” – and part of an “extreme escalation in the left’s never-ending drive to politicize the courts and the confirmation process.”
Republicans say Democrats have been unfair to an otherwise eminently qualified nominee and have wrongly cast him as an ideologue.
However, despite exhaustive confirmation hearings where Gorsuch, like many nominees before him, declined to take clear stances on hot-button issues, Democrats largely are convinced he would be a staunch conservative in the mold of the late Antonin Scalia, whose seat he would fill on the nine-member court. They pointed to past rulings on cases where he sided with businesses against workers, though his allies maintain he was merely applying the law as written. Democrats also are still furious over Republicans’ refusal to consider former President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.
Democrats, meanwhile, howled over the GOP majority’s move to deploy the “nuclear option” to get Gorsuch approved in the end. They warn it will drastically change the way the Senate operates for the worse.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., warned the Senate was about to “go over the cliff.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he said. “The answer is not to change the rules, it’s to change the nominee.”
He also said Gorsuch “may very well turn out to be one of the most conservative justices on the bench.”
McConnell’s predecessor as Senate majority leader Harry Reid, now retired, took the first step down the “nuclear” road by lowering the threshold for other major nominees. But lowering the threshold for a Supreme Court pick means for the foreseeable future, the minority party will have significantly less leverage to oppose any nominee to the highest court in the land, no matter who is president.
Schumer said there will be “less faith in the Supreme Court” going forward.
http://i.imgur.com/6KVjNK0.jpg
Senate Republicans deployed the so-called “nuclear option” Thursday afternoon in a bid to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, moving to overcome a Democratic filibuster just minutes earlier.
The Senate initially voted 55-45 on a motion to end debate on Gorsuch, with four Democrats breaking ranks; it needed 60 to succeed. Known as a filibuster, this vote triggered Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to go “nuclear.”
This means he is trying to change Senate precedent so that the Senate can move to a final roll call with just a simple majority of 51 votes, as opposed to 60. If he succeeds, a final confirmation vote would be held Friday.
The dramatic and fast-paced chain of events is poised to significantly change the way the Senate does business. Each party blames the other for the escalation and the breakdown in the Senate’s parliamentary decorum, and the impact could be felt for years, if not decades, to come.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, kicking off Thursday’s session, blasted Democrats for the filibuster attempt and accused them of driving the upper chamber to this point. He said their opposition to Gorsuch isn’t about the nominee but “the man who nominated him” – and part of an “extreme escalation in the left’s never-ending drive to politicize the courts and the confirmation process.”
Republicans say Democrats have been unfair to an otherwise eminently qualified nominee and have wrongly cast him as an ideologue.
However, despite exhaustive confirmation hearings where Gorsuch, like many nominees before him, declined to take clear stances on hot-button issues, Democrats largely are convinced he would be a staunch conservative in the mold of the late Antonin Scalia, whose seat he would fill on the nine-member court. They pointed to past rulings on cases where he sided with businesses against workers, though his allies maintain he was merely applying the law as written. Democrats also are still furious over Republicans’ refusal to consider former President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.
Democrats, meanwhile, howled over the GOP majority’s move to deploy the “nuclear option” to get Gorsuch approved in the end. They warn it will drastically change the way the Senate operates for the worse.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., warned the Senate was about to “go over the cliff.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he said. “The answer is not to change the rules, it’s to change the nominee.”
He also said Gorsuch “may very well turn out to be one of the most conservative justices on the bench.”
McConnell’s predecessor as Senate majority leader Harry Reid, now retired, took the first step down the “nuclear” road by lowering the threshold for other major nominees. But lowering the threshold for a Supreme Court pick means for the foreseeable future, the minority party will have significantly less leverage to oppose any nominee to the highest court in the land, no matter who is president.
Schumer said there will be “less faith in the Supreme Court” going forward.