Merkley: Republicans Have Deeply Damaged the Integrity of the Senate and the Supreme Court

Republicans invoked the “Nuclear Option” to change Senate rules in order to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

“Today, Senate Republicans completed the judicial coup they launched last February. For the first time in our nation’s history, a Supreme Court seat has been stolen. In doing so, they have deeply damaged the integrity of the Senate and the Supreme Court itself. 

“Let’s be clear: the Republicans already detonated the nuclear option when Majority Leader McConnell announced within hours of Justice Scalia’s death that the Senate majority would refuse to consider any nominee put forward by President Obama. What we saw today was the continued fallout from that nuclear option, and it will only lead our nation further down the path of division and partisanship. 

“The primary driver of the majority’s decision to steal the Supreme Court seat was to sustain the flow of dark money that is corrupting our elections. The deed is done. McConnell and his team have put a knife into the heart of our ‘We the People’ republic.”