CK Now

By Professor Carolyn Shapiro

Going nuclear may serve Republicans today, but in the long term, it may do more for Democrats. Today, in response to a Democratic filibuster of Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court, the Republicans voted to eliminate the 60-vote threshold to end debate on a Supreme Court nomination. The Republicans have an immediate victory here: Justice Gorsuch will be sitting on the Supreme Court before its oral arguments scheduled for later this month. But in the long run, the elimination of the filibuster may help Democrats more than Republicans when it comes to Supreme Court appointments. (I’m not alone in thinking about unintended consequences here. Nate Silver of 538.com has an extensive piece today about how Republicans have generally used the filibuster more effectively than Democrats to block legislation and arguing that eroding its power may thus advantage Democrats in areas beyond the Supreme Court.)

Continue reading “Gaming Out the Nuclear Option”

By Professor Christopher Schmidt

Judge Neil Gorsuch is headed toward Senate confirmation. Ever since the President made the nomination, it has been hard to imagine another outcome. Short of some scandalous skeletons emerging from Judge Gorsuch’s closet—a closet that, by all accounts, appears safely devoid of anything of much interest—this is a loss Democrats expected. The Republicans have the votes to put Gorsuch on the Court (although they may need to invoke the “nuclear option” and eliminate the filibuster to do so). Gorsuch’s strong performance in the hearings only gave them more reasons to support him.

Knowing this was a loss they were going to have to absorb, Democrats still hoped to at least score some political points during the hearings. It was a highly visible opportunity to advance their concerns with the politics surrounding the nomination process and the nominee’s conservative jurisprudence. Yet here too, I think the Democratic efforts should be judged a loss. They were unable to take advantage of the hearings to advance their agenda in any meaningful way.

Continue reading “Why the Democrats Lost the Gorsuch Hearings”

By Professor Christopher Schmidt

It was another long day for Judge Neil Gorsuch. Yesterday, day three of his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, was the second round of questions from senators on the Judiciary Committee. In the first round, senators had thirty minutes each to question the nominee; for the second round, senators had twenty minutes each. The headlines were largely the same as the day before: Gorsuch was composed and articulate, if perhaps a bit overly scripted at times; he gave precious little in the way of specific views on key legal issues or precedents, seemingly even less than other recent nominees; and things generally are looking good for the judge to become the next associate justice of the US Supreme Court.

Continue reading “The Gorsuch Report—Confirmation Hearings, Day 3”