His agenda is to get the deals that his individual boys and girls need while preserving the image of #TheResistance. His opposite numbers in the GOP understand that. And so partisanship bipartisanship will kill the filibuster
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Thursday that Democrats will attempt to filibuster Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination, saying he would tilt the Supreme Court too far away from what Democrats want to see.
“After careful deliberation I have concluded that I cannot support Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court,” Mr. Schumer said, announcing his filibuster on the Senate floor.
The speech amounted to a challenge to Republicans, who may now have to decide whether to trigger the “nuclear option” and change the chamber’s rules to curtail the power of the filibuster.
Mr. Schumer, who four years ago himself voted to trigger the nuclear option on all other nominees, told Republicans not to follow his lead.
“The answer isn’t to change the rules, it’s to change the nominee,” the New York Democrat said Thursday.
Change the nominee based on what?
The Dems haven’t found anything wrong with Gorsuch. He sailed by on personality. None of the attacks stuck. He’s gotten high ratings even from liberals. If Merrick Garland was a judge that Republicans were supposed to have trouble saying no to, Gorsuch was the judge that Democrats have trouble saying no to.
And, Gorsuch could have come in wearing a rainbow jacket and talking about how much he loves abortion and illegal aliens… and the same exact thing would have happened. There’s no Trump nominee that would have been acceptable.
Senator Schumer didn’t do any “careful deliberation” about Gorsuch. He decided to do what the big donors and the activist edge of the left wants. Even while trying to preserve some modicum of credibility. In the process, he decided to kill the filibuster. And that might be the way he wants it. With his hands tied by the left, Schumer can now safely operate from impotence. He can let the aspiring presidential candidates, e.g. Booker, put on their show. And then the whole thing moves on.
Schumer is more in the mold of LBJ. But he’s stuck with a party that has gone far to the left. His agenda is to get the deals that his individual boys and girls need while preserving the image of #TheResistance. His opposite numbers in the GOP understand that. And so partisanship bipartisanship will kill the filibuster.
This article first appeared at FrontPageMag.
Daniel Greenfield is a New York City writer and columnist. He is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and his articles appears at its Front Page Magazine site.
