Grassley: Schumer 'Poisoned the Well' on Confirmation Rules

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has "poisoned the well" with his threat of staging a filibuster against Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, and in order to get back to the practice of the Senate for over 211 years, he'll have to "drill a new well," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said Wednesday.

"My thought is that for 211 years there had never been a filibuster of judges, unless you want to call the bipartisan filibuster in the 60s as only example," Grassley said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom."

However, the Senate is in a "whole new environment now," said Grassley. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected on Thursday to deploy the "nuclear option," meaning he will enact a rules change that eliminates the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees and lowering the vote threshold to confirm Gorsuch from 60 to 51.

Grassley said he hopes that is not the option, but Republicans plan to do what it takes to get Gorsuch, a "well qualified person on the Supreme Court, we are going to do it."

He also said that if that happens, it will get the Senate "back to what the rule was from 178 until 2012 or 2013."

Grassley also took offense to Schumer's words on the Senate floor, when the New York Democrat claimed that by blocking hearings for President Barack Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland, that was "worse than a filibuster."

"When we point out the practice of the Senate was for 211 years and Schumer led the way to change that, he poisoned the well," said Grassley. "If he wants to get back to the point where we were for 211 years, then he is the one that will have to drill a new well. We'll help him drill the new well because we think the comity of not having partisan opposition or ideology determining whether someone is qualified to be on the Supreme Court that is the sort of comity we want for the future of our country, and he can help us get back there by drilling a new well."

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