Schumer Announces ‘No’ Vote on Gorsuch, Signals Possible Filibuster
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) Image by getty images
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Thursday he will vote ‘no’ on Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court and hinted he will force the vote to filibuster, requiring Republicans to garner 60 votes to confirm the candidate.
Republicans control 52 seats in the Senate.
In a speech in the Senate, Schumer cited the Gorsuch’s “lack of candor” in the hearings and a “deep-seated conservative ideology.”
“Judge Gorsuch was unable to sufficiently convince me that he’d be an independent check on a president who has shown almost no restraint from executive overreach,” Schumer said. “He is someone who almost instinctively favors the powerful over the weak, corporations over working Americans.”
After careful deliberation, I have concluded that I cannot support Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) March 23, 2017
For months, Senate Republicans have threatened what is often called the “nuclear option” – exempting Supreme Court nominees from filibusters. “If this nominee cannot earn 60 votes, a bar met by each of President Obama’s nominees and George Bush’s last two nominees, the answer isn’t to change the rules,” Schumer said. “It’s to change the nominee.”
Contact Shira Hanau at [email protected]
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
