Posted on 04/02/2017 7:41:59 AM PDT by ColdOne
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday that Judge Neil Gorsuch will be confirmed this week to the Supreme Court but acknowledged Republicans still might not have enough support from Senate Democrats to avoid their attempts to slow or try to stop the nomination process with a filibuster.
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“We’re going to get Judge Gorsuch confirmed this week,” McConnell, R-Ky., told “Fox News Sunday.”
Gorsuch, President Trump’s pick to fill the high court seat of conservative Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, will almost certainly have enough votes early this week in the GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee but will struggle to get 60 votes for final confirmation by Friday. (Scalia died in February 2016.)
Republicans have 52 senators in the chamber and will need the support of eight Democrats to get Gorsuch confirmed in a straight floor vote.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I’m sure Trump has informed Senate leaders in both parties that he won’t hesitate to put a pro wrestler or unemployed steel worker with no legal credentials on the Supreme Court as a recess appointment if they refuse to confirm a highly qualified judge.
Unfortunately, a great number of people, maybe even the author of this piece, believe this. Actually, the only requirement is a simple majority of the senators voting. The 60 votes so often talked about is simply one of the procedures leading to a vote on confirmation. There are other methods to get to a vote, including a unanimous consent resolution or simply allowing opponents to exhaust themselves in debate. The easiest way is to change the rules to allow a simple majority to stop debate and move to a confirmation vote as with other appointments.
As stated in post 10 above, Senator McConnell did not take the heat for denying a vote on Judge Garland just to give up now. The filibuster was effectively eliminated when the precedent was established by Senator Reid that the rule allowing it could be changed at any time by a simple majority vote.
McConnell or Schumer?
Schumer's a reptile, he doesn't have eyelids. He lubricates his eyes with his tongue.
Yertle rarely has definitive statements like this, so I actually believe him.
Am more concerned about the next two, who should come very, very soon.
Do really think the rats will only use the reid option if the Republicans do now? The rats are in this to win no matter what. What McConnell does or doesn’t do has zero effect on what the rats will do in the future.
Maybe. Another way to look at is if the dems filibuster an obviously qualified and pristine clean Judge Gorsuch; it allows McConnell to use the nuclear option then when President Trump gets to nominate another one or two Judges for the SC the precedent of using the 51 majority is old news so by using it the dems can't use their propaganda machine to say the confirmed Judge is illegitimate even though history tells us they will probably try.
This odd behavior by dems to try delegitimize elected or confirmed positions in the government doesn't make any sense to me but then I'm not a raving lunatic leftist either.
Good for Mitch. Either confirm or get the nuke. Stick it to them. Then when Ruth Buzzy croaks do it again.
And what happens when the Dims lie (as they always do) and say they will vote for him so the Republicans think they have the required 60? And then the Dims vote no. So he is not confirmed. Do the Republicans have enough guts to say we are going to the nuke version and vote again?
Good point.
Fine with me as long as the person is conservative. Go Trump!!!
Nuke ‘em as a tribute to Harry Reid!
Schumer’s father was an exterminator, he is very familiar with rats.
From a floor speech by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), Nov. 13, 2013:
We need to call out these filibusters for what they are—naked attempts to nullify the results of the last Presidential election, to force us to govern as though President Obama had not won the 2012 election.
President Obama did win the 2012 election—by 5 million votes. He has done what the Constitution requires him to do—nominated highly qualified people to fill open vacancies on the Federal bench. If Republicans continue to filibuster these highly qualified nominees for no reason other than to nullify the President’s constitutional authority, then Senators not only have the right to change the filibuster rules, Senators have a duty to change the filibuster rules.
We cannot turn our back on the Constitution. We cannot abdicate our oath of office. We have a responsibility to protect and defend our democracy, and that includes protecting the neutrality of our courts and preserving the constitutional power of the President to nominate highly qualified people to court vacancies.
President Obama did win the 2012 election—by 5 million votes.
...
I had no idea there were that many electoral votes.
That is not surprising. At one time Senate Rules were considered inviolable whether or not they were to the advantage on one faction or the other. As with society as a whole, adherence to rules has broken down and the democrats were quicker to accept this reality than were republicans. In reality, the filibuster is nothing more than an excuse for the majority to not act. When it was first waived by a simple majority vote to allow confirmation of a class of appointments, it was effectively waived for all purposes. By precedent, any time and for any purpose the majority desires to break a filibuster, they only need have a simple majority vote to change the rules. That is equally applicable to Supreme Court Nominees, Obama Care repeal, or to rename a post office. Republicans need to stop trying to fool the public; the 60 vote rule is no longer a rule, it is simply an excuse by the majority for not acting.
Pretty easy to figure out here. McConnell has the upper hand and he rarely gives such a matter-of-fact and a definitive statement. Gorsuch is going to be confirmed one way or the other.
No. I agree with you the Rats will do it as needed in the future regardless of what the Pubs do. But as they know Gorsuch is qualifified and they should unanimously approve him, they are choosing to try and filibuster the vote for some gain. Either to hold on to their extremist base or for some political gain in the future when they are in power, i.e. using the nuclear option with impunity as the Pubs already did it.
I am so tired of the ‘nuclear’ cliche.
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