Republicans failed to get the 60 votes needed for cloture on Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court, so Friday’s Senate session will feature the long-awaited appearance of the so-called “nuclear option.”
And sources close to the White House say Trump is already planning for the next SCOTUS nominee – and this time, they don’t have to take the Democrats into consideration.
By mid-morning Thursday, it was clear that any effort at compromise had fallen apart. Despite advances from Republicans, the only offer the Democrats would agree too involved dropping Neil Gorsuch’s nomination altogether and letting Democrats choose the substitute nominee – something they’d have to be high to think Republicans would agree to.
At noon, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made one last attempt to derail Gorsuch’s nomination, moving to postpone the confirmation until after the Easter recess, which begins on Saturday, or as soon as legislators can grab a flight out of National Airport Friday afternoon. Republicans refused.
By 12:45, the bomb had been dropped. The final vote for was 55 – 45, with Democratic Sens. Joe Donnelly (IN) and Joe Manchin (WV) siding with Republicans for cloture.
The vote triggers an additional 30 hours of debate, which began early Thursday afternoon. By Friday Senate lunchtime, there will likely be a new Supreme Court justice ready to take the bench.
The White House had been white-knuckling the nomination process, particularly in light of several public legislative failures. But as McConnell was sealing the deal in the Senate, the Trump team was already, reportedly, lining up the next nominee.
Most court-watchers assumed Ruth Bader Ginsberg, 84, would be the next justice to step down, by virtue of her advanced age.
Rumor has it, however, that once the nuclear option is in place, Justice Anthony Kennedy, an 80-year-old Republican appointee, will actually be next to retire. The Trump White House could be appointing his replacement as early as the close of this Supreme Court session in June.
Kennedy’s son is friends with Donald Trump, Jr., and has reportedly expressed concerns that his father wants a quiet retreat from the bench.
Whoever replaces Kennedy was in for a difficult fight – after all, Kennedy is a moderate, and Democrats were in a good position to argue that a middle-of-the-road legal scholar should replace him, rather than a more conservative judge. Now, without the need for Democratic input in the process, there would be no fight; Trump could appoint even a hard-right justice to replace the aging swing vote.
Trump is taking the possibility seriously, and is undergoing a “talent search” in the states. And this time, he can guarantee that the replacement process will be much, much easier.
