WASHINGTON ― Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and his fellow Republicans pulled the nuclear rules trigger Thursday, gutting the filibuster rule for Supreme Court nominees after Democrats blocked President Donald Trump’s conservative pick, Neil Gorsuch. They also criticized Republicans for the way they treated President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, who was denied both a hearing and a vote last year. It had never, underline the word never, happened before.”Republicans said the other side was making history of their own by carrying out the first partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee. That resulted in permanently changing the Senate rules so it only takes 51 votes to advance a Supreme Court nominee. After changing the rules, McConnell held the vote again on advancing Gorsuch’s nomination.

Source: Huffington Post April 06, 2017 16:10 UTC