Democrats and Gorsuch

Democrats don’t seem to be united on how to deal with the nomination of Neil Gorsuch, which is “no way, no how.” Richard Blumenthal gets it:

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said Sunday that he would filibuster Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch and “use every tool that we have” if Gorsuch fails to disavow litmus tests on abortion and guns, among other things.

Gorsuch’s multi-day confirmation hearing is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. ET on Monday.

Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, began by saying on MSNBC Sunday that Gorsuch would have to tell the committee that a ban on any religion is unconstitutional. Judges have said that religious bias motivated President Donald Trump’s recently blocked travel ban.

“Even if he can’t comment on the specific immigration case, he has to at least show that he respects the principle that the government can’t discriminate on the basis of religion; that a Muslim ban would violate the Constitution,” he said.

Blumenthal said he would hold Gorsuch to the same standard on Roe v. Wade, which set a precedent establishing abortion as a fundamental right, and gun control laws.

Michael Bennet on the other hand:

Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch will get some bipartisan cover at his confirmation hearing next week — even if for just a few minutes.

Gorsuch, a Denver native, will be introduced by both Colorado senators — Michael Bennet, a Democrat, and Cory Gardner, a Republican — before he delivers his opening testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday. It’s long been tradition that a nominee’s home-state senators give the introduction during the high-profile confirmation hearings. The third person who will introduce Gorsuch is former Obama acting solicitor general Neal Katyal, who has written op-eds and letters to the committee endorsing Gorsuch’s nomination.

Aides to Bennet, who has faced political pressure to vote for Gorsuch, stressed that his introduction has no bearing on whether he will support President Donald Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee. Indeed, the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) introduced then-nominee Samuel Alito before the Judiciary Committee in 2006, but ultimately voted to filibuster him.

Gorsuch comes from a Colorado power elite family and his mother was Reagan’s absolutely nightmarish EPA director. So he is getting a lot of pressure from the Colorado political class. But who cares. He was just elected to a second term. Come 2022, no one is going to care how he voted on Gorsuch on the right because they aren’t going to support him anyway. Colorado is moving pretty rapidly to the left and voting to confirm is only going to hurt him with his base. Moderates won’t care either way in five years. While I realize Bennet has not said he will vote for Gorsuch, he’s also been fairly favorable in his public comments. He needs a lot of pressure to vote no. Gorsuch will almost certainly be confirmed. Given that it is a stolen seat, it needs to happen with zero Democratic votes which forces Republicans to blow up the filibuster.