As the Senate moves toward getting rid of the ability of 41 senators to block Supreme Court nominees, moderates could see their profiles rise in any post “nuclear option” reality with a renewed emphasis on party unity.

Conventional wisdom is that presidents would be able to pick more stridently partisan nominees for the high court if the risk of a super majority filibuster is eliminated. But such a procedural change would also put a bigger target on moderate members of the majority.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said he has the votes to move ahead with the process of changing the chamber’s precedents by allowing a simple majority to break the Democratic filibuster of Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill a vacant Supreme Court seat.

The result might be something like what happened this year with the efforts to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law, according to filibuster expert Sarah Binder of George Washington University and the Brookings Institution. When the chambers consider legislation where a simple majority is required, such as the budget reconciliation process, all the focus is on various factions of GOP lawmakers.

“That 60 vote threshold takes the spotlight off of the majority, as we’ve seen with Gorsuch. Moving to simple majority cloture would make every Republican vote pivotal to confirmation,” Binder said. “There’s no minority party to blame for blocking a nominee.”