Democrats Exploring Deal With McConnell On Gorsuch Nomination

[Miles Archer]

Democrats Exploring Deal With McConnell On Gorsuch Nomination

WASHINGTON ― Democratic senators are quietly contemplating cutting a deal with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.): giving him an up-or-down vote on Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch if he restores the 60-vote requirement for advancing district and circuit court nominees.

That’s just one proposal being floated as part of ongoing conversations between more than half a dozen Senate Democrats, according to two Democratic aides familiar with the talks. Another proposal is offering to confirm Gorsuch in exchange for a commitment from McConnell to preserve the 60-vote threshold just for future Supreme Court nominees, a source told The Huffington Post, and which Politico also reported on Wednesday.

So far, the talks remain very preliminary. Leadership isn’t a part of the group exploring such an arrangement, and there haven’t been any conversations with McConnell himself or other GOP senators. Instead, it is more of an organic dialogue among rank-and-file Democrats looking ahead to Gorsuch’s confirmation vote in the next two weeks.

But the objective among these Democrats is to preserve the filibuster ― the party’s only real leverage while in the minority, with the fear being that McConnell will remove it if Gorsuch’s nomination is blocked. The thinking among the group is that McConnell will end up just shy of the 60 votes he needs to advance the Gorsuch nomination, with all 52 Republicans likely to vote for him and a handful of moderate Democrats likely to join. McConnell has hinted that he’s prepared to nix the filibuster rule altogether if he can’t hit 60 votes. That would mean that going forward, it would only take 51 votes to advance a Supreme Court nominee.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mcconnell-deal-court_us_58d312e9e4b0f838c62f60f9?lwa77zc06nfpzoxbt9&

[femmocrat]

1. No deals!

Block Gorsuch. Period. #WeObject

[CincyDem]

2. IIRC, Nixon's final straw was when SCOTUS ruled he had to turn over the tapes...

...I contend that Trump will view his taxes the same way. Somehow, at some point, all of this will come to a head when some court (for whatever reason) decides he's got to turn them over. It'll run up to SCOTUS and the 9 will be the ultimate deciders.

With Gorsuch among the group, my bet is they decide there is nothing in the constitution that requires a president to disclose his taxes.

I know there's a lot of carrot in the idea of impacting the lower levels of the judiciary but not at the expense of the big kahuna.

[PoliticAverse]

8. The IRS already has his taxes. The law already permits congress to get his taxes. n/t

[CincyDem]

10. I didn't know that. Is that something where the Exec branch can claim privilege ? n/t

[PoliticAverse]

12. His tax filings don't constitute an act of the executive branch that would be covered...

by executive privilege. Also the tax filing in question are from before he was President.

[WillowTree]

11. There **isn't** anything in the Constitution "that requires a president to disclose [his/her] taxes"

There's nothing to be "decided" about that.

[NewRedDawn]

3. No deals with Moscow Mitch!

Thought Schumer was filibustering?

[unblock]

4. interesting idea! but, here's the thing:

in a way, negotiating a deal in exchange for letting gursucks thorugh sounds like a good idea, because, really, the seat is going to get filled by a right-wing *sshole eventually regardless.

let's say donnie is forced to resign.

hell, let's say pence is forced to resign, too, because his election is equally tainted even if the media ignores him.

then we have president ryan, or whoever gets appointed in between.

regardless, it's a right-wing *sshole who will nominate another right-wing *sshole to the supreme court.


by all rights, democrats should filibuster for 4 years no matter how many presidents they run through during that time, but i don't see that happening. after once we have a president other than donnie and possibly pence, the media will declare the scandal over and the pressure will be on to most past it and democrats won't be able to hold a filibuster together.

so if we can prevent maybe hundreds of right-wing *sshole district court nominees from getting through, that might be a good deal if all we're really giving up at the supreme court level is delay.



only one problem:

who the f*ck can trust republicans to hold up their end of the deal?

even if we wait until they change the rules first, then we let gorsucks in, republicans might just change the rules back as soon as they feel like we're inconveniencing them.


bottom line, no deals with unethical liars.

[brooklynite]

5. Schumer has announced the Dems are filibustering...

[L. Coyote]

6. FILIBUSTER!!!!!!

[jrthin]

7. NO! Stop Making Deals

That destroy us.

[MatthewStLouis]

9. NO DEALS!

What is wrong with these Dems?!!! This is part of their work. Show some damned backbone! Resist the GOP tyranny!