Supreme payback shadowed Gorsuch nomination

In light of his months-long campaign to block Senate hearings on Judge Merrick Garland’s nomination and tie the vacant Supreme Court seat to November’s presidential election it’s difficult to take Mitch McConnell seriously when he says Democrats have “brought the Senate to this new low.” In light of the importance precedent plays in law, it’s strangely fitting to see how much the rival parties are relying on history to explain away the part they played in a “nuclear” war over protocol. Senate Republicans like McConnell spent most of last year defending their stalling by citing the “Biden rule,” which Washington lore says demands that an election-year Supreme Court vacancy remain unfilled. The former Senate committee chairman went to the floor, mindful of a bitter battle over Clarence Thomas’ nomination, and called for “serious reevaluation of the nomination and confirmation process” that at the time would likely have been dominated by “partisan bickering and political posturing.”