When it was his turn to question Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch during the second day of Senate confirmation hearings, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, had a few bones to pick -- not with the judge, but with his Democratic nominees.

Fed up with complaints about the GOP's decision to block former President Barack Obama from picking a Supreme Court justice in 2016, Graham tried to sweep away the man who wasn't there: Merrick Garland, a federal appellate judge who was Obama's choice to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

"Judge Garland was a fine man, and I'm sure I would have voted for him," Graham said. During former President George W. Bush's final term, when there was a rumor that a Supreme Court justice was about to step down, Graham said, several top Democrats -- including former Sen. Harry Reid, former Vice President Joe Biden and others -- made statements declaring that nominations and a confirmation hearing should wait until after the election.

Yesterday, several Democrats on the committee used their opening statements to complain about how Republicans linked arms to keep Obama from filling the Scalia vacancy. Even Democrats who vouched for Gorsuch before the committee mentioned that the GOP gave Gorsuch a raw deal.

Graham's biggest complaint, however, was Reid's decision as Senate majority leader to eliminate the filibuster for all judicial nominees except for the Supreme Court. Reid made the move to counter Republican obstinance in approving Obama's nominees, but Graham said it's done irreparable harm to the judicial nomination process.

"But now things are different. I believe that vote, Nov. 21, 2013, forever changed the way the Senate works," he said, "and will do long term damage to the judiciary as a whole. The most ideological [extremes] have been rewarded."

Graham pointed out that he voted for two of Obama's other nominees, Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, because he thought they were qualified, even though he disagreed with them on the issues. He then quoted Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Papers, on how the Senate should have a limited role in approving a president's judicial nominees.

"I'm not here to say our party is without fault," Graham said. "I'm here to say that on Nov. 2013 the game has changed, I think in a way that Mr. Hamilton would be very disappointed."

Graham said he dismissed his own party's accusations that Sotomayor and Kagan were biased because "I took time to find out how they lived their lives." Democrats, he added, should dismiss party leaders' "garbage" allegations about Gorsuch's record and judge his personal history and qualifications for themselves.