WASHINGTON—The Republican-led Senate was poised on Friday to confirm President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick, conservative appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch, providing the president with his first major victory since taking office in January.
Republicans have a 52-48 Senate majority and all of them support Gorsuch, as do a handful of Democrats. The vote is expected at around 11:30 a.m. (1530 GMT) on Friday.
“He’s going to make an incredible addition to the court. He’s going to make the American people proud,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in remarks on the Senate floor kicking off Friday’s debate ahead of the confirmation vote.
McConnell added that Gorsuch, a Colorado-based federal appeals court judge who previously worked in the Justice Department under Republican former President George W. Bush, has “sterling credentials, an excellent record and an ideal judicial temperament.”
Senate confirmation of Gorsuch, 49, would restore the nine-seat court’s 5-4 conservative majority, enable Trump to leave an indelible mark on America’s highest judicial body and fulfill a top campaign promise. Gorsuch could be expected to serve for decades, while the Republican Trump could make further appointments to the high court because three of the eight justices are 78 or older.
Republicans on Thursday overcame a ferocious Democratic effort to block a confirmation vote by resorting to a Senate rule change known as the “nuclear option.”
They disposed of long-standing rules in order to prohibit a procedural tactic called a filibuster against Supreme Court nominees. That came after Republicans failed by a 55-45 vote to muster the 60-member super-majority needed to end the Democratic filibuster that had sought to deny Gorsuch confirmation to the lifetime post.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who led the filibuster effort, said on Friday the rule change will make the Senate “a more partisan place” and that Americans’ faith in the integrity of the court and the basic impartiality of the law will suffer.
