The heat is on this week in the Senate, where members must choose whether to stand with—or against—their party in the vote to confirm Neil Gorsuch as the next Supreme Court Justice. Democrats plan to filibuster and Republicans have promised to respond with the so-called “nuclear option,” which would change the rules so that a simple majority of senators could confirm Gorsuch instead of the 60 votes needed now. The change would apply to future Supreme Court nominees, too. The next pick for the country’s top court would only need a simple majority—just as it already is for federal court nominees, ever since 2013 when then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid engineered that change. Some Senators are worried that the change would mean Republicans and Democrats would no longer have to reach across the aisle on Supreme Court picks—or anything else. Joining Jim Braude are Farai Chideya, a Harvard Fellow and senior writer for FiveThirtyEight during the campaign; Steve Kerrigan, former CEO of the Democratic National Convention and a former candidate for lieutenant governor; and former Republican state senator Robert Hedlund, who is now mayor of Weymouth.
