Republicans Abandon the Filibuster to Save Neil Gorsuch
Updated on April 6 at 1:20 p.m. ET
The judicial filibuster in the Senate is now dead.
Republicans on Thursday ended decades of Senate tradition by changing the rules to keep Democrats from blocking President Trump’s nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. On a strict party-line vote at the direction of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Senate invoked what has become known as the “nuclear option” and formally lowered the threshold for ending debate on a nomination to 51 votes from 60, paving the way for Gorsuch to win confirmation on Friday.
The demise of perhaps the Senate’s most famous rule—onin the Senate will no longer need to choose a candidate that can receive bipartisan support, empowering liberal and conservative activists over those in the middle.
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