The Senate is careening toward a historic change to its filibuster rules that takes it one step closer to a version of the majority-rule House of Representatives.

But no one seems to care enough to save the Senate from itself.


Unlike past institutional crises, there’s no bipartisan “gang” stepping up to force a truce between the warring armies led by Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer. Acrimony between the two parties has become so routine that invoking the so-called nuclear option to get Neil Gorsuch confirmed to the Supreme Court is almost a ho-hum affair, assumed to be a done deal.

“The Senate has changed,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who’s fought rules changes in the past. “You can’t do what we used to do, what I did in the past. There’s too much ill will.”

“There’s a lot of shared concern about our direction,” added Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, one of the few Democrats willing to bargain with Republicans to maintain the filibuster. “But there’s not yet a willingness to make any of the actual concessions that would require us to get back to working together in a real way.”

There’s still a chance that lightning will strike and senators will either avert the filibuster that Democrats are prepared to mount — or find a way to prevent the nuclear option of unilaterally killing the 60-vote requirement for high court nominees, which Republicans are rounding up votes to do in response.

But interviews with more than two-dozen centrist-minded senators from both parties over the past week show just how remote a possibility that is.

Eight Democrats agreeing to advance Gorsuch and three Republicans opposing a change to Senate rules could conceivably avert the crisis. But attempts to form a bipartisan group toward that end have fizzled in the Senate, according to several people familiar with the matter. Republicans control 52 seats vs. Democrats’ 48.

“We are gang-less,” said a source familiar with those discussions.

Some members are looking to Schumer and McConnell to keep the Senate from spiraling into a majoritarian institution without the bipartisan reputation the chamber has always enjoyed.

“It has to be resolved between the two leaders,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who opposes Gorsuch but has not said he would join a filibuster. “That’s the only way you’re going to be able to get the confidence of the members of the Senate.”

But there have been no meaningful conversations between Schumer and McConnell about avoiding a rules change, sources said. McConnell is increasingly dug in, rallying his troops to confirm Gorsuch by any means necessary. Schumer has staked his reputation as leader to a successful filibuster of Gorsuch, with major disappointment looming on the left if he fails.

Accordingly, the vast majority of the Senate is now resigned to further parliamentary decay.

“If Neil Gorsuch isn’t good enough, there’s never going to be a nominee good enough, and so I don’t see any advantage to rewarding bad behavior,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said of a potential deal with Democrats to head off the crisis.

“To say that we will disarm and provide exactly what the majority wants while they still retain the same weapon to use in the future is probably not an actual solution,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) of an agreement that aids Gorsuch.

Liberal and conservative activists are warning against any such agreement. When Politico reported that Coons was speaking to Republicans about trying to preserve the filibuster, NARAL Pro-Choice America responded with ads blasting his efforts.

And when Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) took to the Senate floor Tuesday to pan his own party’s “audacious” move to block Merrick Garland from receiving a hearing last year, McConnell quickly rebutted him during a party lunch. Attendees said McConnell argued that it was Democrats — not Republicans — who are breaking centuries of precedent by obstructing Gorsuch.

“I’m trying to stir the pot enough to get everybody concerned about where we go from here,” Corker said afterward.

3 things to watch in the Gorsuch confirmation battle

Senators in both parties are growing anxious. They lament that gutting the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees will result in more ideological justices, just as the 2013 rules change on other nominees produced Cabinet picks under President Donald Trump that almost certainly would have been blocked had a 60-vote threshold remained in place.

And they worry the next step is the end of the legislative filibuster, which may soon be the last remaining tool for the minority to stop the majority from running roughshod over it.

Before he retired late last year, former Democratic leader Harry Reid predicted the Senate would eventually do away with the filibuster altogether, saying “it’s just a question of when.” Reid led the 2013 effort to eliminate the filibuster for Cabinet and other nominees.

Some members of past Senate “gangs” regret participating. In 2005, a group of seven Republicans and seven Democrats agreed to confirm some of George W. Bush’s judicial nominees in order to avoid going “nuclear.”

And some Republicans took painful votes for President Barack Obama’s nominees in the summer of 2013, only to watch Reid nix the filibuster months later.

“I’m not a complete fool. I’ve done this twice and have been burned twice, you know,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a Gang of 14 member who also tried to stop Reid in 2013 by voting for some Obama nominees. “I got the crap beat out of me.”

But Democrats don’t trust McConnell — or any other Republican — after the blockade of Garland in 2016. Some Republicans even suggested they’d keep the vacant court seat empty indefinitely if Hillary Clinton had beaten Trump.

“The problem we have is finding a trustworthy, verifiable approach to agreement,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democratic leader. “It’s a desperate situation.”

Liberals are pushing for Democrats to make the GOP round up the 50 votes needed to change the rules unilaterally. Schumer is openly doubting that McConnell can do so.

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But interviews with the two moderate Republicans most likely to object to a rules change reveal that McConnell is likely on solid ground.

“There really is no justification for filibustering this individual. So another question is whether anyone on the Republican side will think that there should be some sort of negotiation,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a Gang of 14 member.

“If it was another nominee that was polarizing, that was not more mainstream, maybe then this is an issue,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). “I believe very, very strongly that Neil Gorsuch needs to be confirmed. So I’m going to figure out a way to get him confirmed.”

The Senate is expected to take up Gorsuch’s nomination next week, and the dynamic could change before then.

Several senators, like Cardin, Coons, Mark Warner of Virginia and Angus King of Maine, could still vote to advance Gorsuch to an up-or-down vote under the right conditions, though they would face blowback from liberals. There are five Democrats up for reelection in states that Trump won handily in the same category, though just West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin has committed to vote for Gorsuch . Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jon Tester of Montana and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota are all concerned about changing the fabric of the Senate — but it’s not clear what they are willing to do about it.

“I’m going to base it on his qualifications and his opinions,” Tester said. “I don’t think Montanans want me to be cutting a deal.”

