Democrats Have The Votes To Filibuster Gorsuch As Chris Coons Becomes The 41st No Vote

Senate Democrats have enough votes to filibuster Trump Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch as Sen. Chris Coons has announced that he will vote against cloture.

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Coons said that he was not ready to end debate on Gorsuch, and would be voting against cloture until the Senate can work together to find a way around Mitch McConnell’s threatened nuclear option.

Sen. Coons is the 41st Democrat who has stated that they will vote against cloture. The Gorsuch nomination will be filibustered by Democrats, and it is now up to Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans to decide whether or not they are going to blow up the traditions of the world’s greatest deliberative body just to get a failing president a win, and a single Supreme Court nominee confirmed.

Here is where the filibuster stands currently:

If McConnell changes the rules for Supreme Court nominees, it will be a short-sighted mistake that Republicans will live to regret for decades to come. The Republican Senate majority is just a few seats. After the 2018 midterm election, the Senate map turns favorable for Democrats.

Majority Leader McConnell put the Senate on this path to destruction when he refused to allow a vote on Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. Senate Democrats are calling McConnell’s bluff and daring him to change the Senate rules.

Coons was correct. A great Majority Leader could look at this moment and use it to fix what has gone wrong in the Senate, but McConnell is not a great leader. He is not even a good Majority Leader.

The Supreme Court fight that McConnell started last year is about to reach its logical conclusion as Democrats are going to filibuster Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association