Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Wednesday that Democrats have no intention to waive their right to require Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination to overcome a major procedural hurdle before receiving an up or down vote.
The Senate procedure, known as invoking cloture, requires 60 votes to move forward with a vote on the underlying issue and is used to formally shut down debate on an issue before proceeding to a final vote.
Democrats could simply agree to move forward with a straight up or down vote requiring only a 51 votes for confirmation, but Blumenthal, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said there’s no chance of that happening.
“There will be a 60-vote requirement — whether that’s for cloture or against a filibuster,” he told the Washington Examiner Wednesday.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has argued this week that former Presidents Barack Obama’s and Bill Clinton’s first two Supreme Court nominees didn’t require a cloture vote, and Democrats should stick to that tradition.
“None of those four had to get cloture,” McConnell said Tuesday. “In other words, they were given an up or down vote, those four nominees.”
