Senate Goes ‘Nuclear’ To Approve Supreme Court Nominee

April 06--Senate Republicans embraced a rules change known as the "nuclear option" on Thursday to overcome Democratic opposition to President Donald Trump's pick for the Supreme Court -- a historic modification that will ease the path for future nominees to the court.

Judge Neil Gorsuch failed to secure the 60 votes needed to advance his confirmation in an earlier vote -- marking the first successful filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee in decades. Republican leaders, who hold the majority, had promised to respond to that outcome with a rules change that will allow nominees to be confirmed with a simple majority.

The Senate voted 48-52 to change the rules. A 'no' vote indicated support for the rules change. Maryland's two Democratic senators -- Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen -- both voted to block Gorsuch, and also opposed the rules change.

The change will make it easier for Trump and future presidents to put justices on the court. The threat of a filibuster, though rarely embraced, forced presidents to consider the politics in the Senate and choose nominees who could win some support from the opposite party.

With the new rules in place, Gorsuch is expected to be confirmed Friday.

While Democratic leaders decried the move, their party had made the same change in 2013 for other nominees -- a decision they later said they regretted. Democrats have been under pressure from the left to block Gorsuch, despite the looming threat of the rules change.

Democrats have cast Gorsuch as an out-of-the-mainstream ally of moneyed interests, and they blamed the GOP for failing to hold a hearing or a vote on President Barack Obama's nominee for the court, Merrick Garland. Republicans have described Gorsuch as an accomplished judge, and they noted that Trump included him on a list of possible candidates for the Supreme Court during last year's presidential election.

GOP leaders framed the Democratic opposition as having more to do with Trump's unexpected victory in November than Gorsuch himself.

"Democrats would filibuster Ruth Bader Ginsburg if President Donald Trump nominated her," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said on floor, referring to one of the court's liberal justices. "There is simply no principled reason to oppose this exceptional, exceptional Supreme Court nominee."

Democrats disagreed.

"We Democrats have given Justice Gorsuch a fair process, something Merrick Garland was denied," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. "The cooling saucer of the Senate will get considerably hotter."

Senators on both sides of the aisle lamented the rules change, though they themselves were in position to prevent it from happening and failed to do so.

Moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said roughly 10 senators of both parties worked over the weekend to come up with a deal to stave off rules change, but couldn't come to agreement. In 2005, a bipartisan deal headed off GOP plans to remove the filibuster barrier for lower-court nominees, but in 2013 Democrats took the step, leaving the filibuster in place only for Supreme Court justices.

"I fear that someday we will regret what we are about to do. In fact, I am confident we will," said Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican. "It is imperative we have a functioning Senate where the rights of the minority are protected regardless of which party is in power at the time."

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

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