Senate Democrats are considering blocking President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch with a filibuster – except for the senators of states that Trump won in the election.
Next year Democrats must defend 10 seats in states that Trump carried in November. Some of those states, like West Virginia, weren’t even close, with Trump winning over 69% of the vote.
“I’m not going to filibuster anybody,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) told The Weekly Standard.
“I look forward to meeting with Judge Gorsuch, examining his record, and making a determination of whether to provide my consent,” Manchin said in a statement. “Just as I have all along, I urge my colleagues to put partisan politics aside and allow the vetting process to proceed.”
The Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) Super PAC sent out emails questioning whether red-state Democrats should back the filibuster.
On Manchin, they said: “Will he stand with the people of his state who overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump to be able to pick the Supreme Court nominee? Or will he stand with [Sens.] Elizabeth Warren [Mass.], Bernie Sanders [Vt.], and the rest of the Democratic caucus that only cares about its far-left base of permanent protesters?”
The SLF sent out similar releases for Democratic Sens. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Jon Tester (Mont.), who are all up for reelection in Trump states.
All have been mostly silent on whether they back the filibuster.
“A lot of these red-state Democrats are in a real bind,” a Senate Republican aide said.
Republicans hold the Senate 52-48, and would need eight Democrats to vote with them to break the filibuster. If that doesn’t work, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may invoke a “nuclear option,” a last minute Senate rule change.
Though Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) hasn’t publicly endorsed the filibuster, he did pledge to fight “tooth and nail” against Trump’s nominee if he wasn’t “mainstream.”
“If the nominee isn’t bipartisan and mainstream, we will absolutely keep the seat open,” Schumer said on CNN last week.
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