ON APRIL 3rd, when the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination by 11-9 along party lines, the proceedings took on an oddly funereal flavour. “It breaks my heart to find us in this position,” said Richard Durbin, a Democrat. A Republican, Lindsey Graham, said the Senate would be haunted by it, and that future court nominees would be “more ideological, not less”. In preparing to block Mr Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee, Patrick Leahy, a Democratic senator for 42 years, acknowledged that his party’s move might push the Republicans to upend a time-worn Senate tradition. But he suggested his party had no choice but to fight Mr Gorsuch’s nomination tooth and nail.
The ill-fated tactic on everyone’s lips is the filibuster, a manoeuvre dating back to the 19th century whereby senators hold forth in debate for as long as they like to thwart a vote they expect to lose. In 1917, the body adopted a rule permitting filibusters to continue until two-thirds of senators opted to end debate and hold a vote; in 1975, following delays that almost derailed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Senate lowered the threshold to 60...Continue reading
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