Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) urges Republicans, the election winners, to work with Democrats in selecting a "mainstream" Supreme Court justice in a speech on the Senate floor on Monday, April 3, 2017. (Screen grab from C-SPAN)

(CNSNews.com) - Democrats have opposed President Donald Trump at every turn, and now they're urging Trump to "simply consult" with them in choosing a Supreme Court nominee who can pass Democrat muster.

In a speech on the Senate floor Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer implored Republicans not to change Senate rules so they can confirm Neil Gorsuch with a simple majority vote, instead of the 60 votes necessary to forestall a Democrat filibuster.

"We Democrats are not going to oppose every Republican nominee," Schumer said. (He appeared to be serious.)

"We're offering the president and our friends on the other side a way forward. They don't have to break the rules to get a Justice on the bench. They don't have to break the Senate confirmation process -- fundamentally weakening the constitutional principle of "advice and consent" -- to get a Justice on the bench.

The president, President Trump, could simply consult with members of both parties to try to come up with a consensus nominee who could get approved and meet a 60-vote threshold.

The answer, again, isn't to change the rules, it's to change the nominee.

And we Democrats are not going to oppose every Republican nominee. Of course we realize a nominee selected this way would not completely agree with our views, but Judge Gorsuch is so far out of the mainstream that he isn't able to earn the votes to pass the Senate.

Schumer said removing the 60-vote threshold for controversial matters would cripple the Senate. He expressed the hope that "my Republican friends consider the option of working together to find a solution we can both accept. It sometimes may seem like a novel concept around here...but that option is always on the table."

At a news conference Monday afternoon, Republican senators said Democrats are threatening to filibuster the Gorsuch nomination for purely political reasons.

They said Gorsuch’s qualifications are impeccable, and if Democrats would filibuster someone of such "high quality...there isn't any justice that a Republican would put forth ...that they would support," Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Judiciary Committee chairman, said.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said the Democrats' reflexive opposition to Gorsuch "just shows there's so much pressure on them from the radical left that they really can't take the radical left on and vote...for someone of the quality of Neil Gorsuch."

And Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accused the "modern" Democrat Party of opposing anyone President Trump would appoint to the Supreme Court.

"If they will filibuster Neil Gorsuch, they will filibuster any nominee from a Republican president,” Cruz said.



“That obviously is not a tenable standard for advice and consent, and that is the reason why if the Democrats persist in this foolish filibuster, the Senate majority will have no choice, but return to the standard that has prevailed for over two centuries in the Senate, which is confirming Supreme Court justices by a majority vote."