Congress McConnell bets the Senate on Gorsuch The Republican leader's Supreme Court gambit secures his place in history — but at what cost to the Senate?

When Neil Gorsuch is confirmed to the Supreme Court this week, Mitch McConnell will clinch a place in history after pulling off one of the most audacious gambles in modern political history.

Whether he’ll be regarded as a hero or a villain depends almost entirely on which side of the aisle one is on.


The immediate payoff to the Republican Party is enormous and indisputable, starting, of course, with another staunch conservative on the court who could remain there for decades. But Republicans also credit McConnell with saving the Senate majority and electing President Donald Trump, by giving traditional conservative voters a powerful motivator to turn out for a nominee they were less than enthused about.

“He’s a big believer in the prerogatives of the Senate,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, a member of McConnell’s leadership team. “Mitch’s handling of all these issues when it comes to the courts is something that I’m sure will be studied probably down the road.”

McConnell’s critics, though, said what he’ll really be remembered for is the lasting damage he did to the institution. His expected move this week to blow up Senate rules so Supreme Court justices can be approved by a simple majority could well produce a more polarized and ideologically pure high court over time. It takes the Senate down a similar path.

“Merrick Garland is how he’ll be remembered, violating 230 years of Senate tradition to create this unholy mess we’re facing,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

Belying his reputation for caution, McConnell has revolutionized Senate tactics, stretching his wide-ranging power as party leader to turn once-routine confirmation votes and legislative exercises into trench warfare. Republicans blame Democrats for using the filibuster routinely during the presidency of George W. Bush and launching the first major rules change since 2013, but there is no doubt McConnell has weaponized the Senate rules in a manner that is certain to alter the chamber for years to come.

When Barack Obama was president and McConnell was deep in the minority, he used dilatory techniques and GOP unity to deny the Democratic president wins. Even after former Majority Leader Harry Reid gutted the filibuster and unilaterally confirmed dozens of liberal-leaning judges and several Cabinet members, McConnell often delayed them as much as he could. Once McConnell took the majority, he used his power as Senate leader to slow confirmation of lower-level judges to a trickle and block Garland from even receiving a hearing to set the table for a GOP makeover if Republicans won in 2016.

And Republicans never paid an electoral price for McConnell’s actions, emboldening Democrats to meet McConnell with a historic partisan filibuster to deny Gorsuch the 60 votes he needs to advance. Even Reid had to pay grudging respect to McConnell’s shrewdness after the election, recalling in an interview last year that he told McConnell on the Senate floor: “Mitch, I disagreed with how you did it, but it’s admirable that you did it.”

McConnell is planning to escalate things further by making high-court nominees subject to a simple majority requirement to jam through Gorsuch, a significant change that will both dilute the minority party’s leverage and empower presidents to select justices with no bipartisan appeal.

“We’ll end up with a Supreme Court that has far more extreme justices on both sides of the aisle,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who worries the Senate is being ruined. “On our side of the aisle it’s being sold as a badge of honor right now, as a great thing. And that’s what I’ve been railing about.”

McConnell has no regrets about blocking Garland or creating the Senate's current predicament.

"We were right in the middle of a presidential election year. Everybody knew that neither side, had the shoe been on the other foot, would have filled it," he told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "But that has nothing to do with what we're voting on" now.

Still, McConnell’s decision to block Obama from filling the seat made many Republican senators uncomfortable. The most infamous moment was when Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said in March 2016 that Garland should be considered and the “process should go forward.” He was immediately savaged by conservatives and threatened with a primary challenge by former Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.).

Moran quickly walked back his statement and now admits McConnell's strategy paid off.

“In my view, Judge Gorsuch is such a quality nominee that the end result is something that’s of great value to the country,” Moran said.

When McConnell announced within hours of Antonin Scalia’s death that the Senate would not take up a replacement until after the election, it was not viewed as an obvious call. Democrats said they would capitalize by knocking off vulnerable incumbents who fell in line behind the GOP leader. And as 2016 dragged on, it appeared McConnell would gain nothing more than a delay, as top officials in both parties believed Hillary Clinton would beat Trump and Democrats would retake the Senate majority.

Now, several Republican senators say they likely would have lost the Senate and the White House without a Supreme Court vacancy on the line to bring reluctant conservatives around for Trump and GOP incumbents. Asked whether the GOP would be in power without McConnell’s move, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) responded: “No. I think it was critically important to voters.”

“It’s distinctly possible that that was a game changer, yes,” said Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who ran the GOP's campaign arm in 2016. “It’s one thing to say there are future nominations that may be at stake. It’s quite another to say there’s a vacancy there and you can vote on Nov. 8 to decide.”

Trump won the election by tipping three Rust Belt states his way by margins small enough that Republicans believe the Supreme Court vacancy was a determining factor. Republicans “would have felt betrayed" had McConnell allowed Obama to fill the high-court seat, said Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who narrowly won reelection.

“It almost certainly made the difference in the president’s race in Pennsylvania,” Toomey said.

McConnell blames Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, now the Democratic minority leader, for beginning the partisan firefight when he tried to launch a filibuster of high-court nominee Samuel Alito in 2006. But now Schumer is using much of McConnell’s strategy against him: Democrats have drawn out the confirmation of Trump’s Cabinet selections to a historic degree. If Democrats dig in, they could delay hundreds of sub-Cabinet nominees for months, if not years.

Sign up here for POLITICO Huddle A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Democrats say McConnell’s reputation will be forever tarnished if he deploys the “nuclear option” to unilaterally kill the filibuster’s 60-vote requirement for high court nominees.

“He’s got some decisions ahead of him. And that could profoundly alter the way he’s perceived afterwards,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.).

In the short term, though, there’s nothing Democrats can do to stop McConnell short of taking back the Senate in 2018 — a near-impossibility. More likely, the party's next shot to strike back is defeating Trump in 2020.

Just as he raised the stakes in the 2016 election, McConnell might well do the same for future elections. After the rules change, it's possible that the only way for Supreme Court nominees to be confirmed will be when one party controls both the White House and Senate.

Many Republicans are plainly uncomfortable with what Reid, McConnell and Schumer have wrought in bringing the Senate closer to a majority-rule institution. But given how much heat the GOP took in 2016 over McConnell’s stance and the importance of the Supreme Court vacancy to Republican voters, they believe they have no option but to finish what the GOP leader started in February 2016.

“Our base wants him confirmed,” said a dour Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), “and would not understand if we did not get him confirmed.”

Elana Schor contributed to this report.