Remember all that talk about holding an up-down vote on Gorsuch regardless as to whether or not he had the votes to actually pass a Republican-led U.S. Senate?
…well, screw all that. The Democrats just want to play the game. Per the New York Times:
Though lawmakers have long deployed the filibuster — a procedural device that allows for continued debate to block or delay a vote — to suit their circumstances, Supreme Court confirmations have been viewed as another matter, insulated at least somewhat from the body’s most partisan passions.
Under current rules, Republicans cannot break the filibuster if fewer than 60 senators vote to move the nomination to an up-or-down Senate vote. That would require eight Democrats to join the 52-seat Republican majority. As of Monday evening, only four Democrats had announced support for an up-or-down vote.
Judge Gorsuch’s fate will depend on whether Republicans follow through on plans for the so-called nuclear option, as Mr. Trump has urged, to circumvent the filibuster for a Supreme Court pick.
This is a very artful way of saying the Democrats have effectively walked back on the idea of up-down votes, and are perfectly willing to break with the tradition of not filibustering U.S. Supreme Court nominees when it suits their tastes.
Quite the opposite song they were singing a year ago, eh?
Of course, what happens now is very simple: the Republicans are going to be given no choice but to match an unprecedented move by the Democrats with one of their own — the so-called “nuclear option” that will break the impasse.
Brian Schoeneman over at Bearing Drift laments the current state of affairs:
The Senate was one of the last bastions of civility left in modern politics. The collegial, club-like atmosphere that the Senate has cultivated for the last two centuries always made it a place where the hardcore partisan politics found in the House of Representatives was looked down upon. The Senate had higher standards. Senators were expected to be more bi-partisan, to look less at parochial concerns, and more at the good of the country. House members were just politicians. Senators were statesmen. As the old joke went, the House has “affairs” and the Senate has “relations.” At least, that’s how they viewed themselves. Not everybody agreed with that image, not the least of whom were members of “the other body.” That image though, is gone. The days of Senators from across the aisle maintaining friendships and working together has evaporated in an age where Elizabeth Warren-style bitter invective has become not only the norm, but the idealized way to behave. They’re selling t-shirts of it now.
You find it particularly hard to reject Schoeneman’s reasoning here. Once again, the Democrats have cheapened the rules of engagement, pushing past process when it suits the objective of grabbing power. Once again, Republicans are forced to play by the new rules of the game — thus normalizing the Democrats’ low bar while in an ironic twist eroding the conservative devotion to process.
Quite honestly, this is part of the dilemma for those stuck in the “honorable middle” and especially for those conservatives who were less-than-thrilled with the prospect of a Trump presidency, but absolutely horrified at the prospect of continuation of the last eight years of the Obama administration under Hillary Clinton.
If the rules don’t matter, and conquest and power are the sole objective, is there any small wonder why even sensible Republicans are willing to swallow the toad?