Free Republic

The Senate’s most senior Democrat says he probably won’t join his party’s effort to filibuster Judge Neil Gorsuch, in the first major indication that Republicans may not have to resort to the so-called “nuclear option” to fill the empty Supreme Court seat. Senator Patrick Leahy, Vermont Democrat, said he’ll vote against Judge Gorsuch’s nomination, but doesn’t think a filibuster is the right path. “I am not inclined to filibuster, even though I’m not inclined to vote for him,” Leahy told the Vermont Digger on Sunday.

...how else to explain this announcement from Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee: “I am not inclined to filibuster, even though I’m not inclined to vote for him,” Leahy said. And please spare me any crap about Leahy’s respect for Senate tradition, his spirit of bi-partisanship, or any other nonsense like that. Leahy’s as partisan as partisan gets. This guy helped plan and execute the “high-tech lynching” of Clarence Thomas, for God’s sake.

Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware predicted Monday that Republicans will “almost certainly” have to resort to the “nuclear” option to approve the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Coons, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held four days of hearings on the Gorsuch nomination, doesn’t envision Democrats crossing party lines to vote in favor of President Trump’s nominee. “He will get an up or down vote. Sen. Schumer, our minority leader, has said it is going to be a 60-vote margin, and I doubt he is going to get 60 votes. The question...

Democrats are delaying for one week an initial committee vote on Neil Gorsuch, President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the committee, said Democrats had requested that the committee's vote on Gorsuch be punted to next week. "I understand that the minority would like to hold [him] over," Grassley said during the Judiciary Committee's meeting on Monday. Under committee rules any one member can request that a nomination be held the first time it appears on the agenda. Democrats were widely expected to delay the committee's vote until next week. The delay means...