NEWS

McCaskill will support filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch

Deirdre Shesgreen
DSHESGREEN@USATODAY.COM

WASHINGTON — Sen. Claire McCaskill said Friday she will support a filibuster of Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to fill the current vacancy on the Supreme Court — a politically risky move that could escalate the partisan warfare over judicial nominations in Washington and alienate independent voters in Missouri.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

The Missouri Democrat acknowledged the potential fallout and tricky politics in a statement posted on Medium, a social media site.

“This is a really difficult decision for me. I am not comfortable with either choice,” she wrote.

“While I have come to the conclusion that I can’t support Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court — and will vote no on the procedural vote and his confirmation — I remain very worried about our polarized politics and what the future will bring, since I’m certain we will have a Senate rule change that will usher in more extreme judges in the future.”

The “rule change" McCaskill referred to is also known as the "nuclear option,” so named because of its far-reaching consequences. Republicans have said they will do away with the filibuster, through a change in Senate rules, if Democrats filibuster Gorsuch. That would allow Supreme Court nominees to be confirmed by a simple majority.

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Republicans would need 60 votes to end a filibuster without a rules change, but they only hold 52 seats in the chamber, so they need some Democratic support to meet that threshold.

McCaskill’s decision to support the filibuster makes it less likely Republicans will hit that mark.

How it will affect McCaskill’s own political future is unclear. GOP advocacy groups are already targeting her for defeat in the 2018 elections, and her “no” vote on Gorsuch will almost certainly become fodder for ads portraying her as anti-Trump obstructionist.

Within an hour of McCaskill’s announcement, one conservative group, the Judicial Crisis Network, had blasted out a statement criticizing McCaskill as a senator for “limousine liberals.”

"Senator McCaskill supports Obamacare, she supports taxpayer funding of abortion, she voted for two of President Obama's liberal Supreme Court nominees, and now she is refusing to even give Judge Gorsuch a fair up or down vote in the Senate,” the network’s chief counsel, Carrie Severino, said in the statement.

But McCaskill’s decision will thrill liberal activists, who have been urging Democrats to block Gorsuch in full force. After McCaskill tweeted her decision on Friday, her followers responded with an outpouring of “thank you” messages and promises to donate to her campaign.

In her Medium post, McCaskill said she could not support Gorsuch because his opinions "reveal a rigid ideology that always puts the little guy under the boot of corporations."

She said her biggest concern was his apparent support for Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited sums to elect or defeat a candidate. "I cannot and will not support a nominee that allows dark and dirty anonymous money to continue to flood unchecked into our elections," McCaskill said.

McCaskill's public statement came after the Missouri Republican Party released audio on Thursday of the Democrat making similar, albeit more candid, remarks at a closed-door fundraiser. At that event, held in Missouri last weekend, McCaskill told her audience that if Democrats block Gorsuch, Republicans could change the rules and Trump could pick an even more conservative nominee for the next round.

She noted that Gorsuch was nominated to replace another conservative on the court, Antonin Scalia, who died last year. If Democrats lose the ability to filibuster and a liberal leaves the court, McCaskill said, Republicans could more easily win another confirmation fight that dramatically tilts the court rightward.

Then, she said at the fundraiser, Democrats could get a Scalia-type nominee “for somebody on the court who shares our values. And then all of a sudden the things I fought for with scars on my back to show for it in this state are in jeopardy."