Key Senate Republicans say they won’t support a change to Senate rules that would allow President-elect Trump to quickly get his Supreme Court nominee confirmed, a sign that Trump may find it harder than he was hoping to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
Trump’s stunning victory helped Republicans maintain their majority hold on Congress’ upper chamber, and set up the possibility that the GOP might change the rules to allow Supreme Court nominees to advance by simple majority, instead of the current 60-vote threshold.
A strong argument for imposing the so-called “nuclear option” is the expectation that Democrats will do all they can to block Trump’s nominee, since Republicans blocked President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, for nearly a year.
But an ongoing Washington Examiner survey of Republican senators shows that Trump may have a hard time convincing them to blow up decades of Senate rules. Republican Sens. Pat Roberts of Kansas, Bob Corker of Tennessee, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have all said they would not support a change.
“Rules changes come back and bite you,” Roberts told the Examiner in an interview. “It’s just better to follow [former Sen. Robert] Byrd’s advice.”
Roberts was referring to the late former Democrat from West Virginia, the longest-serving senator in U.S. history. In a “Dear Colleague” letter in 2010 before he died, he warned his colleagues not to go nuclear and change the Senate rules because it would diminish the power of the minority and make the Senate similar to the House.
Democrats held off for nearly three years, but in 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., opted to go nuclear and change the filibuster rules for all presidential executive appointments, excluding only Supreme Court nominations.
The decision is already coming back to haunt Democrats, who now won’t be able to block any of Trump’s nominees, except his Supreme Court pick, as long as the 51 or 52-seat GOP majority agrees to confirm them.
Corker, along with Roberts, thinks expanding that to include Supreme Court picks is a bad idea.
“I think the filibuster rule has played an important role — although it has been abused — in seeking things that will be durable and don’t just flip around when there’s a change in control,” said Corker, who is a candidate to be Trump’s secretary of state. “That wouldn’t be my first choice.”
Graham recently told reporters after a press conference that he took wouldn’t support such a move. And Flake said he has never supported efforts to block minority filibusters through Senate rules changes.
“I’ve never wanted to go nuclear — I think we can do it without doing that,” he told the Examiner, referring to seating Trump’s choice for the high court.
Flake also noted that he voted in favor of Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s nomination because, he said, “I believe a president ought to get his picks” confirmed.
