Neo­fas­cist Don­ald Trump tonight announced he is nom­i­nat­ing an arch­con­ser­v­a­tive judge to fill the vacan­cy left by Antonin Scali­a’s death near­ly a year ago, which should have been filled last year, but was­n’t due to the obstruc­tion­ism of Sen­ate Repub­li­cans. Trump’s pick, Neil Gor­such, would be an almost sure vote to “to lim­it gay rights, uphold restric­tions on abor­tion and inval­i­date affir­ma­tive action pro­grams”, accord­ing to a study by Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty (PDF).

SCO­TUS­Blog has a roundup of reac­tion to the announce­ment.

Sen­ate Democ­rats must act to pre­vent our coun­try from going fur­ther down the path of fas­cism by fil­i­bus­ter­ing Gor­such’s nom­i­na­tion. Chuck Schumer has sig­naled the cau­cus will insist on a six­ty-vote thresh­old, which is good to hear, but we need to hear a sim­i­lar com­mit­ment from every oth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic senator.

Fil­i­bus­ter­ing might not ulti­mate­ly stop Repub­li­cans (who have a Sen­ate major­i­ty) from con­firm­ing Gor­such, but it would at least pre­vent a rapid right wing takeover of the Supreme Court, which is very impor­tant. Repub­li­cans are on the precipice of hav­ing com­plete con­trol over every branch of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, from the pres­i­den­cy to Con­gress and now the Supreme Court.

Sen­ate Democ­rats must use the rules of the Sen­ate to resist the right wing’s plans for total dom­i­na­tion and defend the val­ues our coun­try was found­ed upon.

Supreme Court protest an hour after the announce­ment of the nom­i­na­tion of Neil Gor­such (Pho­to:
Vic­to­ria Pick­er­ing, repro­duced under a Cre­ative Com­mons license)

A few Sen­ate Democ­rats, like Delaware’s Chris Coons, have stat­ed pub­licly or hint­ed that they plan to tread care­ful­ly because don’t want to be seen as obstruc­tion­ist. Coons and any col­leagues who share his sen­ti­ments need to quit wor­ry­ing about how Repub­li­cans are going to por­tray them in the press, and grow a backbone.

Repub­li­cans have no com­pul­sion about alter­ing their stance on a dime; Sen­ate Democ­rats should­n’t either. Espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing the pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion we’re in.

Repub­li­cans refused last year to even hold hear­ings on Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s nom­i­nee Mer­rick Gar­land, and they went unpun­ished. They nar­row­ly held on to their major­i­ty in the 2016 elec­tions, which did­n’t go well for Democrats.

As a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor, Coons is one of the few peo­ple in this coun­try in a prime posi­tion to thwart Trump’s agen­da. Amer­i­ca’s has been grave­ly imper­iled as a con­se­quence of the 2016 elec­tions. Democ­rats like Coons need to buck up and fight like Repub­li­cans — or we will be in even greater trouble.

Not fil­i­bus­ter­ing Gor­such would be dis­as­trous. Any Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tor unwill­ing to block Gor­such’s nom­i­na­tion indef­i­nite­ly will be deserv­ing of a pri­ma­ry challenge.

This notion that the fil­i­buster needs to be saved for some future use is com­plete­ly ridicu­lous, and defies log­ic. If there was ever a time for the fil­i­buster to be employed, it is now. “Sav­ing” the fil­i­buster so it can be used lat­er is pointless.

If Repub­li­cans are will­ing to gut the fil­i­buster now to get what they want, they’ll be will­ing to gut it the next time there’s a Supreme Court vacan­cy, too.

So it would not be of any use then.

By fil­i­bus­ter­ing Gor­such, Sen­ate Democ­rats can back Repub­li­cans and Trump into a cor­ner. Gor­such’s nom­i­na­tion will either be on ice indef­i­nite­ly, or Repub­li­cans will be forced to pull the trig­ger on the so-called “nuclear option” and get rid of the fil­i­buster, which many of them (Mitch McConnell includ­ed) will be loathe to do.

If Repub­li­cans kill the fil­i­buster, it will mean that in the future, should they wind up in the minor­i­ty, they will have no abil­i­ty to block a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Pres­i­dent and a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­ate from get­ting Supreme Court nom­i­nees con­firmed. They will have removed their own main means of obstruct­ing a Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­gres­sion­al major­i­ty and Pres­i­dent in the future by chang­ing the rules and tra­di­tions of the Senate.

Sen­ate Democ­rats can do their coun­try a great ser­vice by fil­i­bus­ter­ing Gor­such and forc­ing Mitch McConnell and Sen­ate Repub­li­cans to decide between keep­ing the fil­i­buster or con­firm­ing Trump’s man. Col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Trump regime is immoral. We call on Sen­a­tors Cantwell, Mur­ray, Wyden, Merkley, and all their col­leagues to fil­i­buster Gor­such and to not back down when hyp­o­crit­i­cal Sen­ate Repub­li­cans attack them for block­ing the right wing’s plans for total domination.