It is amazing to me that no one is mentioning that McConnell has removed the 60 vote requirement

[rgbecker]

needed to approve an SC nomination. They did that to get Neil Gorsuch approved and then figured they could put any hack judge up and get him through. Now we are likely to get a raging rapist for our highest court.

Say what you want about the super majority requirement, it did mean the majority party needed to some help from the minority which arguably led to more moderate picks.

I haven't read one report about Kavanugh's confirmation that mentioned this situation. Several have talked about McConnells holding no vote or hearings for Garland, but everyone seems to be OK that 51 votes are enough to get a SC seat filled.

[W_HAMILTON]

1. We can thank him...

...when we pack the Supreme Court with additional liberal justices after we decimate Republicans electorally in 2018 and 2020.

[WheelWalker]

2. This

[regnaD kciN]

8. Ideally, yes...

...but, even if we get the majorities in Congress and the presidency needed to pass a new law expanding the Court, will we have the guts to do it? Or will we get stymied by the same sort of “blue dogs” that blocked Obama’s proposal for a public option in ACA?

[WheelWalker]

15. Desperate times require desperate courage. Time will tell.

[YessirAtsaFact]

3. Get 60 dems in the senate

Majority in house and president

First order of business -Expand Supreme court to 11 Justices

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. Doing that will depend on a lot of retirements.

All of the extremely conservative justices are relatively young, so that's not going to happen any time soon.

[W_HAMILTON]

7. Incorrect.

There is no constitutional limit on the number of Supreme Court justices -- we do not need any retirements to add additional seats to the current nine-seat Supreme Court. And now, thanks to McConnell, it only takes the presidency and a simple majority in the Senate to do so.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

10. FDR tried that and didn't succeed.

If a Democratic Congress increases the number of justices, a few years later a Republican Congress will add a few more justices. Not a good thing at all.

[standingtall]

16. If Democrats sure up their majority in the Senate

by making D.C. and all inhabited U.S. territories states it will be very hard for republicans to get back the majority in the Senate, and even if they finally did the type of supreme court justices they would appoint would be very different, because of the type of candidates they would have to field to compete in the Senate.

[Major Nikon]

26. FDR did succeed

The SCOTUS judges stopped blocking the New Deal initiatives and the rest is history. FDR didn’t expand the court because it was no longer required to keep them from blocking everything.

[dalton99a]

28. +1. It was a powerful threat - they knew the expansion plan was perfectly legal

[former9thward]

12. Reid changed the rule on judges.

Made it just a majority for district court and circuit court judges. McConnell used that precedent to change it for Supreme Court Justices also.

[standingtall]

18. Remember the context of how that happened

First McConnell filibustered a record number of judges.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

29. The last time the number of judges on the Supreme Court

was raised (to nine) was 1869.

[uponit7771]

6. +1, don't forget MD doesn't have a SOL on the type of assault committed by KNaw and Judge so ...

... a dem president can be picking another judge after KNaw is put in jail

[former9thward]

13. No one is going to be "put in jail".

What are these things posted?

[Sidthelib]

5. We can also thank

Harry Reid, thanks Harry!

[uponit7771]

9. This is false on its face, Reid had to stop the abuse of filibuster of Obama judges. McConnell took

... it further and got rid of the super majority rule when the last USSC judge was selected.

Good try though, we're not LIVs here

[mythology]

17. At best that's a partisan perspective

Republicans can just turn around and say that we were abusing the filibuster when used on Gorsuch.

[uponit7771]

21. Partisan and factual and the filibuster is supposed to be used when a super majority doesn't want

... a judge t be placed ie the need for the super majority.

Dems were using filibuster the way it was designed conservatives were using it blankly when it came to Obama judges ... 90% of the time !!

One's abuse the other is not

[standingtall]

24. And that would be absurd

but they will say anything. McConnel got rid of the filibuster for supreme court nominees in the first half of Trumps first term. Democrats had no chance to filibuster Trumps nominees. While Harry Reid didn't get rid of the filibuster for lower court nominees until almost half way through Obama's second term.

[Demsrule86]

11. There will never be another SCOTUS nomination confirmed unless the party who has the

presidency also has the Senate. That is what the GOP have wrought...it is bad for our Republic but it is what it is.

[Turbineguy]

14. McConnell

broke the senate.

[Amaryllis]

19. None of us are okay with it. Obama mentioned it in that speech he did a few weeks ago; part of

how they've changed the senate rules. So no, many are not okay with it, but what can we do as long as they have congress and are no longer honoring rule of law.

[stopbush]

20. Clarence Thomas was approved 52-48.

When was the 60-vote margin ever in effect?

[GeorgeGist]

22. Filibuster

[rgbecker]

25. Here's a short explanation of the Clarence Thomas vote.

https://www.quora.com/Justice-Clarence-Thomas-got-only-52-yes-vote-in-the-senate-Why-does-Gorsuch-now-need-60-votes-for-confirmation-Was-the-rule-changed-at-some-point#

[Sgent]

23. The 60 vote

thing was put in by Dole in the 90's to counter Clinton. Remember that Clarence Thomas was confirmed with 53 votes.

[rgbecker]

27. rather this from Wikipedia:

The 60-vote rule
See also: Filibuster in the United States Senate

Beginning with a rules change in 1806, the Senate has traditionally not restricted the total time allowed for debate. In 1917, Rule XXII was amended to allow for ending debate (invoking "cloture&quot with a two-thirds majority, later reduced in 1975 to three-fifths of all senators "duly chosen and sworn" (usually 60).[4] Thus, although a bill might have majority support, a minority of 41 or more senators can still prevent a final vote through endless debate, effectively defeating the bill. This tactic is known as a filibuster.

Since the 1970s, the Senate has also used a "two-track" procedure whereby Senate business may continue on other topics while one item is filibustered. Since filibusters no longer required the minority to actually hold the floor and bring all other business to a halt, the mere threat of a filibuster has gradually become normalized. In the modern Senate, this means that any controversial item now typically requires 60 votes to advance, unless a specific exception limiting the time for debate applies.

Changing Rule XXII to eliminate the 60-vote rule is made difficult by the rules themselves. Rule XXII sec. 2 states that to end debate on any proposal "to amend the Senate rules...the necessary affirmative vote shall be two-thirds of the Senators present and voting." This is typically 67 senators assuming all are voting. Meanwhile, Rule V sec. 2 states that "[t]he rules of the Senate shall continue from one Congress to the next Congress unless they are changed as provided in these rules."[4] Effectively, these provisions mean that the general 60-vote cloture rule in Rule XXII can never be modified without the approval of 67 senators.

[Sgent]

30. While that article is true

I can't find a single instance of any nominee being filibustered until Clinton -- and Thomas was confirmed with a 53-47 vote, so it may have been a "gentleman's agreement" not to use the filibuster on nominee's rather than in the senate rules.