Fresh off his 15-plus hour “filibuster,” Sen. Jeff Merkley said he hopes that his marathon protest of Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court will convince Republicans to rethink their plans to ram through his confirmation.

The Oregon Democrat raised the prospect of holding off on Judge Gorsuch’s nomination until another seat on the court opens up and then filling the seats with President Trump’s pick and Judge Merrick Garland, who former President Barack Obama nominated more than a year ago.

“When you look at how this is going to reverberate for the decades to come, it is really bad news for the Senate, and it is terrible news for the courts,” Mr. Merkley told reporters after leaving the Senate chamber.

Mr. Merkley maintained the Senate GOP “stole” the Supreme Court seat by letting Judge Garland’s nomination languish for nearly 10 months without a hearing or an up or down vote on the Senate floor.

But Mr. Merkley effort — which started at 6:47 p.m. Tuesday and ended just after 10 a.m. on Wednesday — is not expected to delay or derail Judge Gorsuch from filling the seat left open last year following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, has made it clear that he will change the 60-vote threshold on Supreme Court nominees, also known as the “nuclear option,” paving the way for Judge Gorsuch to get approved on a simple majority vote this week.

In 2013, Senate Democrats, then in the majority, tweaked the rules in order to beat back the GOP opposition to Mr. Obama’s executive branch nominees and lower court picks — though they stopped short of applying the rule to Supreme Court picks.

On Wednesday, Mr. Merkley said he doesn’t regret advocating for the change, saying Democrats were forced to make the move because of GOP opposition to three of Mr. Obama’s picks for the D.C. Circuit Court, which is viewed as the second most important court and has been a breeding group for future Supreme Court picks.

“That is what put it over the top and even then we protected the most important court,” he said. “We can’t have a situation where the filibuster is used to systematically prevent an administration from working. So we did the right thing.”

Mr. Merkley also dismissed the notion that a fundraising email that his office blasted at the end of his mock filibuster could undermine his message by making it all look overtly political.

“If you have a policy where the minority is always trying to destroy the president or destroy the majority rather than solve problems than you have the situation that Mahatma Gandh spoke to when he said ‘An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,’” he said.

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