Beltway Confidential

5 years after going nuclear, Democrats have reaped what they sowed

By Thomas Jipping
Published November 21, 2018 5:00am ET
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5 years after going nuclear, Democrats have reaped what they sowed
Supreme Court justices, left to right, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch talk with each other before the start of presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. | (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Wednesday is the fifth anniversary of an event that is still changing the course of Senate and judicial history. On Nov. 21, 2013, Senate Democrats exercised the so-called “nuclear option” to abolish the filibusters of nominations they had pioneered a decade earlier.

This is a story of how their best-laid plans went awry.

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