The Senate Democratic filibuster of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee is gaining strength by the minute, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has announced that she will be voting against the nomination of Neal Gorsuch.
Here is Sen. Warren’s statement on her Facebook page:
Most Democrats have not come flatly out and opposed Gorsuch, but Senators like Chuck Scumer has all but confirmed that Democrats are going to filibuster Trump’s nominee.
In less than two hours, Democrats have put the most serious threat of a Supreme Court filibuster in more than forty years. Senate Democrats should be able to get the 41 votes that they will need to force Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to make a choice that he does not want to make.
Democrats are going to force McConnell to either let Trump’s nominee sit in Merrick Garland like limbo, or change the Senate rules to confirm Supreme Court justices with 51 votes. McConnell doesn’t want to change the rule, because with Trump at historically levels of unpopularity and a midterm election next year, it is not difficult to envision a scenario where Democrats take back the Senate in 2018 or the Senate and White House in 2020 and use the new confirmation rules to build a future liberal Supreme Court.
Today’s Senate minority can easily become tomorrow’s Senate majority. McConnell knows this, but with the Senate Democratic filibuster gaining strength by the minute, the Republicans are are about to reap what they sowed by blocking the nomination of Merrick Garland.