Props are due to Colorado’s senior senator, Michael Bennet, for showing leadership among Democrats in urging an up-or-down vote on whether Neil Gorsuch should be confirmed to the highest court in the land.
Count us among critics who felt from the outset to stave off the expected effort to derail the Gorsuch vote. But Bennet’s stand this week opposing top Democrats’ plan to filibuster this Supreme Court nominee has proven us too harsh in our assessment. Make no mistake, this stand for restrained use of the filibuster blockade is tough politically for Bennet, who is already being beaten up by a number of Colorado’s liberal groups.
While we often oppose many of President Donald Trump’s actions, he has impressed us with some picks for his Cabinet, including retired Gen. James Mattis and Lt. Gen. . The presidentap nomination of Gorsuch, a Colorado native with broad support from legal minds in Colorado among both Republicans and Democrats, is one we’ve been happy to support.
Given our position, we were pretty hard on Bennet for keeping such a low profile as top Democrats called for filibustering the Gorsuch vote. After all, Bennetap voice matters in Washington. A former leader of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, he has worked to bolster campaign coffers. Yet Bennet remained a holdout until this week.
A holdout, but, ultimately, not to the exclusion of his ability to exercise his independence before the massive resistance Democrats are displaying toward the Trump nominee.
It’s a quality too often missing in Washington. And it’s one of the reasons we like Gorsuch, who demonstrated courageousness during the confirmation process. The 10th Circuit appellate judge called Trump’s Twitter attacks against the federal judge who blocked the first Muslim ban “demoralizing” and “disheartening,” for example. Gorsuch also insisted in his testimony that had the president sought out his leanings on Roe vs. Wade, he would have “walked out the door.”
In announcing his decision to work against a filibuster, Bennet rightly notes that Republicans in the Senate would be making a big mistake in taking up the so-called nuclear option, a dangerous rule change that would forever strip the threat of a filibuster from Supreme Court nominations.
“I don’t think itap wise for our party to filibuster this nominee, or for Republicans to invoke the nuclear option,” Bennet told Colorado Independent columnist Mike Littwin, who the senator’s decision.
We’ve also Republicans, including Colorado’s junior senator, Cory Gardner, who support going nuclear.
Neither side is blameless in this battle. Democrats started the Senate down this road in 2013, when then-Senate leader Harry Reid removed the filibuster from confirmation of executive-branch and lesser judicial nominees. Next, Senate Republicans earned Democrats’ ire in refusing even to schedule hearings over Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nomination to fill the seat now waiting for Gorsuch.
The poisonous culture is more of the same kind of gridlock Bennet has rightly railed against throughout his Senate career. We’ve appreciated Bennetap call for statesmen in backing him through his re-election efforts, and are glad to see this commitment to bipartisanship.
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