Durbin: Trump Nominee Will Enter Supreme Court with an Asterisk
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) released the following statement after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell changed Senate rules to allow Supreme Court nominations to advance on a simple majority vote. For decades, Senate rules have required 60 votes to end debate on a Supreme Court nomination, helping to ensure some measure of bipartisan support and prevent confirmation of justices with extremist views. Earlier today, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, failed to garner 60 votes.
President Trump’s nominee could not meet the basic 60-vote standard to which we have held every Supreme Court nominee of either party for the past quarter-century. So Senator McConnell changed the rules to push the nomination through. For this, both Judge Gorsuch and Senator McConnell will enter the history books with asterisks by their names.