After Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) used the nuclear option to push the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to a Senate vote, he announced that the upper body will decide President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee’s fate on midday Friday.
CNN reported the approximate time: “The chamber is now expected to vote to confirm Gorsuch Friday around 11:30 a.m. ET.”
While the Senate will debate the nomination of Judge Gorsuch on Friday morning, the debate is little more than symbolic at this point. As Fox News reported, Gorsuch can count on 55 votes at roughly 11:30 a.m. Eastern. This tally includes all 52 Republicans along with three moderate Democrats from states Trump won last November: West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp, and Indiana’s Joe Donnelly.
Michael Bennett, the Democrat senator from Colorado, Gorsuch’s home state, has not publicly announced whether he will vote for the nominee. Given the fact that his vote makes little difference, it is likely he will support Gorsuch, who will be the second justice on the Supreme Court to serve from the great state of Colorado. (After all, he was endorsed by John Elway.)
The key vote happened today, when the Senate Democrats decided to filibuster the “cloture” vote, trying to stop Gorsuch from reaching a simple up-or-down vote in the Senate. McConnell stopped that with the “nuclear option.”
On Friday, Neil Gorsuch will replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court of the United States. It’s time to watch history.
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