Missouri Democratic Senior Senator Claire McCaskill announced Friday she would not support Neil Gorsuch, President Donald's Trump's choice to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, and will vote for a filibuster of his confirmation, The Hill reported.
McCaskill made the announcement to online publishing platform Medium, where she called the decision "difficult," but stated it was due to Gorsuch's "rigid ideology that always puts the little guy under the boot of corporations."
McCaskill maintained Gorsuch's nomination "goes against the grain of President Trump's promise to help working-class Americans because he is ‘a judge who can't even see them,'" the Hill reported.
The announcement makes it "significantly harder" for Gorsuch to gain the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster and proceed to final confirmation, the article maintained. To date, Senators Joe Manchin (W. Va.) and Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) are the only Democrats who have indicated they would support Gorsuch, according to The Hill's Whip List.
In order to avoid a filibuster, the only other path to confirmation would require a change in Senate rules, known as the "nuclear option," which ranking Republicans have indicated they would exercise, if necessary.
"Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has vowed that Gorsuch will be confirmed and has told colleagues to expect a vote to change the rules to lower the threshold for ending a filibuster to a simple majority," according to The Hill.
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