Less than two weeks before the 2016 elections, Virginia senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine said that he would support eliminating the 60-vote hurdle to confirm Supreme Court nominees in order to get Judge Merrick Garland on the court.

“I was in the Senate when the Republicans’ stonewalling around appointments caused Senate Democratic majority to switch the vote threshold on appointments from 60 to 51. And we did it on everything but a Supreme Court justice,” Kaine told the Huffington Post on October 28, 2016. “If these guys think they’re going to stonewall the filling of that vacancy or other vacancies, then a Democratic Senate majority will say, ‘We’re not going to let you thwart the law,’ and so we will change the Senate rules to uphold the law.”