Everything About This Week’s Supreme Court Battle, Explained Simply

The nation’s two political parties are both engaged in a high stakes game of chicken when it comes to filling the vacant seat on the Supreme Court, and neither side seems willing to relent which is promising to cause lasting changes in the nation’s upper chamber.

How we got here

It’s as simple as Republicans, under the tutelage of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), blocking President Barack Obama’s choice of Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy left when conservative icon Antonin Scalia unexpectedly died. The GOP’s refusal to even hold hearings or take a vote on Garland was seen by many Democrats as unprecedented. That lingering bad blood has spilled over into the fight over Neil Gorsuch.

The Filibuster

The filibuster puts a senator from a small state, think Rhode Island or Delaware, on the same legislative footing as those from large states, i.e. California and Texas, because it allows any individual senator to protest legislation or nominees who they view as dangerous for their folks back home. In recent years senators have increasingly used the legislative move to gum up the works of the majority party, which Democrats reacted to in 2013 by lowering the threshold for executive branch nominees and lower court judges from 60 to 51 votes - a simple majority in the Senate.

"The Nuclear Option"

This is Washington speak for changing the time honored Senate tradition of protecting the rights of the minority party. Currently the filibuster forces the majority party to reach across the aisle and work with their Democratic counterparts in order to meet the 60 vote threshold, because there are only 52 Republicans in the Senate. By changing the rule, critics argue it will change the tenor of the Senate.

"There’s a reason they call it the nuclear option, and that is that there’s fallout," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). told reporters at the Capitol. “And this fallout will be dangerously and perhaps disastrously radioactive for the Senate in years to come.”

This week’s time table

The full Senate is set to vote on cloture — the procedure it uses to end debate with the consent of 60 senators — for Gorsuch’s nomination on Thursday. If Democrats filibuster him by not voting to end debate, as they’re promising to do, Republicans will trigger the nuclear option. That will set up a Friday confirmation vote that only requires a simple majority to put Judge Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.

What's changed in today's Senate?

"Partisanship, partisanship, partisanship, partisanship," is how Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) described the mood change in the upper chamber. Republicans are promising not to lower the threshold for voting on ordinary legislation, but critics fear the move to lower the threshold for Supreme Court nominees will further sour feelings in the Senate and will widen the gulf between the nation’s political parties

"We think the nuclear option is filibustering a Supreme Court nominee," Sen. John Thune (R-SD) – the number three Senate Republican – told a gaggle of reporters at the Capitol.

Do you think the Senate should change its filibuster rule over Neil Gorsuch’s nomination? Contact your Senators and let them know how you feel!

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- Matt Laslo

(Photo Credit: C-SPAN / Public Domain)