On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) stated Judge Neil Gorsuch will be confirmed to the US Supreme Court “one way or another.”
Lee said, in response to a question on whether he would support the nuclear option, “Look, we’re going to get Judge Gorsuch confirmed. … We will get him confirmed one way or another.”
When asked if this meant the nuclear option, Lee answered, “It means we’re going to get him confirmed.”
Lee further argued that the rationale Democrats had for nuking the filibuster on executive appointments applies “with equal force to everyone, whether they’re serving in the executive branch or in the judicial branch of government. They nuked the entire thing, and so, for them now to say that, well, it shouldn’t have extended to that, is a little disingenuous.”
He added, “[I]n every situation where we’ve been confirming someone, whether it’s to an executive branch position, to an independent board or commission, to a federal district judge vacancy, a federal circuit court vacancy, any of those things, ever since November of 2013, the precedent has been established, that the executive calendar having been nuked, it takes only 51 votes to close debate on a nominee. That is based on the rationale that they used at the time, which extends to the whole of the executive calendar.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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