Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley made the following statement regarding the vote to return to historical precedent to confirm Supreme Court nominees by a simple majority vote margin after Senate Democrats performed the first successful partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee in the history of the United States.
“Like 2013, Democrats broke new ground again today by conducting a partisan filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. Republicans aren’t the ones breaking new ground here. As a matter of fact, the Democrat’s own Vice Presidential nominee last year emphatically promised that the Democrats would further change the rules to make sure an expected ‘President Clinton’s’ nominees couldn’t be filibustered.
“So, at the end of the day, when Democrats insisted on a filibuster, Republicans insisted on following the practice senators have followed for more than 200 years.
“And that practice is this: we don’t conduct partisan filibusters of Supreme Court nominees. And we’re certainly not going to start with this highly qualified nominee to be the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.”
