Senate Democrats will still be able to block legislation and Supreme Court nominations in the Trump era, according to their Republican counterparts.
Numerous GOP legislators in the upper body said that they are reluctant to lower the 60-vote threshold currently required to advance bills and Presidential picks to the highest court in the land.
Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) have all said that they’re skeptical of any bid to change Senate procedures, according to a report published on Sunday in The Hill.
“I think most Republicans understand that the Senate is not an institution to impose the majority’s will on the country,” Alexander said.
“If we didn’t have the filibuster the minority would be nothing in this country,” Hatch said in an interview with local media. “It would be just like the House where 51 percent vote does everything.”
A simple majority of votes is required to revise procedural rules in the Senate. Republicans currently have 51 seats in the chamber, and are expected to pick up a 52nd after the Dec. 10 Louisiana runoff.
In 2013, while still in control of the Senate, Democrats revised rules to lower the threshold required to advance non-Supreme Court nominations, to a simple 51-vote majority.
The maneuver came after Republicans used procedural powers at an unprecedented rate, to block Obama administration judicial nominations.
If cloture motions are taken as a proxy of legislative obstructionism, Republicans started this effort, in earnest, before Obama was elected–as soon as they lost the Senate Majority, in 2007.
Democrats now look set to be afforded the opportunity to return the favor, with eight of their senators now serving as the only check on Republicans led by a divisive, unpopular, billionaire in the White House.
Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has already said that he is not opposed to filibustering–at least as far as Donald Trump Supreme Court nominations are concerned.
“I’ll underline that we did not change the rules for Supreme Court because we thought on something as important as this, there should be some degree of bipartisan agreement,” Schumer said, earlier this month.
