Delaware’s Chris Coons became the forty-first senator to pledge a no vote on ending debate of Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court later this week, giving Democrats the minimum number needed to filibuster his confirmation.
Coons, who had wavered on whether he would back the procedural maneuver, made his announcement Monday during speeches ahead of the Senate Judiciary Committee vote that cleared Gorsuch for consideration before the full chamber on an 11-9 party-line vote. But Gorsuch needs all 52 GOP senators plus eight others—for a total of 60—to advance to a final up-or-down vote on his appointment. If the tally holds after Coons’s statement, there are only 59 possible yes votes to be had.
“I am not ready to end debate on this issue, so I will be voting against cloture, unless we are able as a body to finally sit down and find a way to avoid the nuclear option and ensure the process to fill the next vacancy on the court is not a narrowly partisan process, but rather an opportunity of both parties to weigh in and ensure we place a judge on the court who can secure support from members of both parties,” Coons said.
The “nuclear option” refers to how Republicans might respond to a filibuster of Gorsuch: rewriting the Senate’s rules to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for concluding debate on Supreme Court nominees. Democrats executed the same play for lower-court nominees when they held the majority under Sen. Harry Reid during the Obama administration.
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell has vowed that Gorsuch will be confirmed this week. Multiple GOP lawmakers, including judiciary panel member Orrin Hatch, have said they will put Gorsuch on the High Court regardless of Democratic tactics. “We are going to confirm Judge Gorsuch. By whatever means necessary,” Hatch told THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s John McCormack.
Gorsuch’s popularity, which transcends his ideology, and pressure from progressive activists have put Democrats in a thorny spot. The respect the judge has garnered from liberal lawyers and former law students, on display during his confirmation hearings, helped build the Republican case that Gorsuch possessed enough appeal to invalidate protests from the minority. Many Democrats stated publicly they were impressed with Gorsuch after conducting personal meetings with him. But they still heard it from the grassroots—and they admitted to still being stung by the manner in which the GOP neglected President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the court last year.
Ultimately, individual Democrats found their own reasons for opposing Gorsuch. Coons cited his concerns with how the judge has ruled on 14th Amendment issues. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Judiciary Committee’s ranking member, cited on Monday his “record at the Department of Justice, his tenure on the bench, his appearance before the Senate, and his written questions for the record. And Oregon’s Jeff Merkley, who has been on the frontlines of blocking President Trump’s agenda, stated he would oppose any choice that wasn’t Garland.
In many respects, their conclusions were awkward. Coons strove to be a voice of moderation, indicating on more than one occasion he would not be an impediment to the confirmation process. Feinstein previously established a “moral turpitude” test to justify stymying High Court picks; she called Gorsuch “a vary caring person” and “obviously very legally smart” in February.
