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Justice Neil Gorsuch
The Senate confirmed Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court on Friday. The vote was 54-45, in which three Democrats joined the Republicans. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) did not vote as he is recovering from back surgery.
Gorsuch will fill the seat left vacant after the death of Antonin Scalia. “He’s going to make an incredible addition to the court,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “He’s going to make the American people proud.”
After Democrats attempted a filibuster to block the nominee, Republicans changed Senate rules to require only a simple majority to break a filibuster. Before the confirmation vote, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) said both Gorsuch and McConnell “will enter the history books with asterisks by their names.”
Gorsuch is expected to be sworn in on Monday morning.
Published in Law
Great win for Conservatives. Thank Goodness Clinton is not President.
This is a large part of what I voted for. Everything else I get in the next 4 years is gravy.
Courtesy of Harry Reid.
Good.
Please, can we rename this the Reid Option?
We better hope Republicans hold on to the Senate in 2018, or this might be the last Justice Trump gets on the SC.
This act had nothing to do with what would happen if they lose the Senate. That seems unlikely though.
… that’s only true when Democrats write the history books.
I think Schumer felt with his party under pressure from such strong activism from the left, he didn’t have the option to back off and save the option of filibustering for another day as Republicans wisely did when faced with candidates Sotomayor and Kagan. He did this to give temporary cover to vulnerable members of his own party. He’s not about to take a position that those extremists are destroying his party.
Now we will learn what kind of a judge Gorsuch is when freed of oversight.
I wish that the Republicans had held a vote to eliminate the filibuster in 2016. If the Democrats had voted to eliminate it then, then allow a vote on Garland. It would have established that Republicans favor an up-or-down vote on all Supeme Court nominees.
Is there any significance to three Democrats joining the Republicans? Were their votes expected?
I don’t know about expected but the Senators from North Dakota, Indiana and West Virginia (three of the most conservative states with Democrat Senators) all decided it was in there best interest to support this Judge.
Democrats with a conscience and a willingness to vote for a person based on thier merits instead of towing the party line? Definitely an anomaly.
I don’t believe Republicans would have used the filibuster. I think McConnell was providing cover for those of his own party who felt it wasn’t right to hold a serious vote on Garland, and I am in agreement with what he did, given the timing of it being an election year and feelings on both sides about the importance of the Supreme Court.
“Mr. Justice Gorsuch”
I love it!!!!!
I believe they (we) will. There are twice as many Democrats up as Republicans. This whole thing was a joke, by the way. The Democrats have no idea what a real judge is. The only ones worth anything are the ones who voted for Gorsuch. They are proving Ben Franklin right, when he said that we have a Republic, “if ” we “can keep it”. Any more Democrats, and we won’t keep it!
Jon,
That’s one! We are going to need at least one more if not two. I’m also counting the democrats that voted with us. Three seems tiny but that can be the edge in so many situations. We’ve got to look for number 4, then number 5, then number 6,..etc. I’d rather fight to get each principled dem vote than compromise principle looking for an easy but meaningless victory.
Oh, BTW, did you notice that Claire said MAGA today. I fell off my chair and my @&$ still hurts.
Regards,
Jim
I am thrilled that the Republicans did not fail by trying to “swing for home” and just got it done. This incredible fight was actually won, and now everyone is talking about how it could have been won better.
A vote would have had its own problems, because we would have voted down a qualified candidate. We had an intellectually consistent position: election year appointments are an anomaly; cross-party election year appointments haven’t happened in over 100 years; the voters put in Obama in 2012 but put in the GOP in a wave in 2014 to be a check on Obama; ergo, let the voters decide the deadlock.
I am okay running on the Supreme Court every election cycle.
No, Mr. Associate Justice Gorsuch.
Are we going to avoid the 12 ton elephant in the room?
Finally a good new story today!
hahahaha – “with asterisks by their names.”
And that will be important to … yeah … to nobody.
It’s actually kind of funny to think about that in the actual context of history. What he’s really saying is that he doesn’t like the nomination, and that there were politics involved. There was a dispute that didn’t go his way. It won’t go down in history as “here’s how Dick Durbin felt about it,” it will be placed in the context of history, alongside every other political disagreement or issue, and, in that context, it doesn’t really stand out in any way at all. It is a supreme court nomination, and regardless of whatever else happens, Gorsuch will probably long be remembered as Scalia’s replacement.
As far as all the democrat talk about rules and the end of democracy and fairness. Think of their 2013 twitter accounts as “history.” Some might even consider their own actions while a majority party as a sort of “history,” even. That actual historical context doesn’t go away, regardless of the size of their temper tantrums.
I also kind of wish that during those hearings, someone would have asked one of the liberal tantrum-throwing senators the simple question: “If [insert liberal justice] were to have died in office in 2007, do you believe that it would have been your responsibility, as the majority party, to confirm George W. Bush’s nomination of a conservative justice to replace her?”
Of course it doesn’t matter, and of course there’s absolutely nothing that a liberal senator could say in answer to that question that should change what Republicans did in any way … but it would just be fun to have a recording of the answer on file, just for playback in either 3 or 7 years.
Also, it wouldn’t have been a terrible time for someone to just play along with the pettiness. “So, what do you think about Obama’s white-house team doing XYZ [sabotaging the transition]?” After all, there’s a certain politeness and respect that the majority party owes the minority party, isn’t there? So let’s bring up all the examples of democrat majority parties’ behavior and let them be addressed one by one. If it’s a discussion about morality and decorum they want, I don’t see why we shouldn’t humor them.
I believe the asterisks would denote “awesomeness” in this case. I didn’t think I’d ever feel that way about Mitch McConnell, but today I do.
I’ve heard that Justice Thomas would like to retire. Perhaps he should do it soon while the going’s good. I realize that the lefties are even older, but I’m sure they’ll hold on as long as they can.
Meanwhile, we should be jumping up and down for joy.
I agree that Mitch McConnell deserves a lot of credit for refusing to hold hearings for Garland and insisting on an up or down vote for Gorsuch.
A ton of credit goes to Trump. When he said that he would nominate conservatives to the US Supreme Court, I didn’t believe him. But Trump proved me wrong. Thank goodness.