Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill told Democratic donors at a private fundraiser recently that blocking Judge Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination could have disastrous ramifications for liberals.
McCaskill, who is up for re-election in 2018 in a state President Trump won in November, fretted about her upcoming decision on whether to vote for Gorsuch.
In audio provided to the Washington Examiner by the Missouri Republican Party, McCaskill can be heard saying, “The Gorsuch situation is really hard.”
“There are going to be people in this room that are going to say, ‘No, no, no. You cannot vote for Gorsuch.’ OK, I get that,” McCaskill says in the recording. “Let’s assume for purposes of this discussion that we turn down Gorsuch, that there are not eight Democrats that vote to confirm him, and therefore there’s not enough to put him on the Supreme Court. What then?”
McCaskill continues, “Gorsuch was one of the better ones” on President Trump’s lists of potential Supreme Court picks and that any blockade would prompt Senate Republicans to deploy the nuclear option and lower the vote threshold required to confirm a Supreme Court nominee.
“So they move it to 51 votes and they confirm either Gorsuch or they confirm the one after Gorsuch,” McCaskill says in the audio. “They go on the Supreme Court and then, God forbid, Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies, or [Anthony] Kennedy retires or [Stephen] Breyer has a stroke or is no longer able to serve. Then we’re not talking about Scalia for Scalia, which is what Gorsuch is, we’re talking about Scalia for somebody on the court who shares our values. And then all of a sudden the things I fought for with scars on my back to show for it in this state are in jeopardy.”
The audio provided by the Missouri GOP provides a window into the Democratic senator’s thinking as she has remained mum publicly on the Supreme Court nomination. McCaskill told reporters this week that she has not made up her mind on Gorsuch, according to the Kansas City Star, which first reported on McCaskill’s private remarks on Gorsuch to Democratic donors.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote on Gorsuch’s nomination on Monday, while the full Senate is expected to vote on the nomination April 7.
