“There must have been a hacking into his computer,” he said of Mr. McConnell,
“because he can’t print the name Merrick Garland to include in the speech.”
Mr. Durbin later said that both Mr. McConnell and Judge Gorsuch would “enter the history books with asterisks by their names.”
And in a performative flourish of parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Schumer seized the floor to ask if any rules or precedents prohibited the Senate from “considering
and voting on a nominee to the Supreme Court in the fourth year of the president’s term” — the oft-used justification for denying Judge Garland even a hearing.
Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, accused the Democrats of an “unprecedented partisan filibuster.”
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Thursday engineered a dramatic change in how the chamber confirms Supreme Court nominations, bypassing a Democratic blockade of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch in a move
that will most likely reshape both the Senate and the high court.
“When history weighs what happened, the responsibility for changing the rules will fall on the Republicans’
and Leader McConnell’s shoulders,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, who had called for the withdrawal of the nomination if Judge Gorsuch could not earn 60 votes.
There cannot be two sets of standards: one for the nominees of the Democratic president and another for the nominees of Republican presidents.”
Republicans are threatening to “go nuclear” if Democrats filibuster Neil M. Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Democrats placed the blame squarely on Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader,
and his Republican colleagues, who last year refused to even consider Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the seat of Justice Antonin Scalia, who died nearly 14 months ago.
