Republicans Use 'Nuclear Holocaust' Option to Bring On Judicial Armageddon

Senate Republicans ignited the "nuclear option" to allow confirmation of President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee and bar Democrats from blocking future picks, a dramatic rule change that could deepen partisan divisions and put more ideologically extreme justices on the court.

The 52-48 party-line vote called for by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Thursday will let the Senate confirm Neil Gorsuch on Friday to take a court seat that Republicans refused to let President Barack Obama fill during his last year in office.

The rule change means Gorsuch and all future Supreme Court nominees can be confirmed with a simple majority vote and will no longer face a 60-vote hurdle.

McConnell said Democrats’ move to filibuster Gorsuch is part of a “much larger story” in which the left is trying to politicize the courts and confirmations.

“It’s a fight they have waged for decades with a singular aim, securing raw power no matter the cost to the country or the institution,” McConnell of Kentucky said on the Senate floor. “It underlies why this threatened filibuster cannot be allowed to succeed."

Democrats said the power grab was made by the Republicans when they denied a hearing to Obama’s nominee last year. In addition, Gorsuch didn’t show himself to be a mainstream judge during his confirmation hearing at the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

"Far from being the kind of mainstream candidate for the Supreme Court that could earn 60 votes, he may very well turn out to be one of the most conservative justices on the bench," said Schumer of New York.

"The nuclear option means the end of a long history of consensus" on high court nominees, he said. The 60-vote requirement acts as a "guardrail" against judicial extremism, Schumer said.