WASHINGTON • Sen. Claire McCaskill is supporting her Democratic colleagues' demand that the next Supreme Court justice meet a 60-vote threshold.
Her announcement came hours before President Donald Trump was scheduled to announce his pick for the high court in a Tuesday night event.
Senate Republicans hold a slim majority of 52 seats. They would need help from red-state Democrats like McCaskill to confirm a justice over a filibuster — or they could invoke the so-called nuclear option, abolishing judicial filibuster with a simple majority vote.
That's what Democrats did in 2013, when they abolished the filibuster for executive appointments and lower-court judges.
McCaskill is not calling for a filibuster herself, nor has she decided on her vote — she's waiting to see who Trump nominates — but she does support other senators' right to filibuster, her communications director John LaBombard said.
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Trump's cabinet nominees only needed majority votes, but the president and some other Republicans have still complained about the pace of the Senate's confirmations.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the number-two Democrat in the upper chamber, seemed to shrug off the possibility that Republicans would invoke the nuclear option themselves. "I've heard enough Republican senators say they don't want to reach that point," he said.
Only eight justices have sat on the Supreme Court since conservative Antonin Scalia died nearly a year ago. Then-President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to fill the seat, but Republicans refused to act on the nomination.
Democrats still fume over that obstruction, and Durbin cited Garland as his standard for a "mainstream" candidate he could support. Still, he cautioned against dismissing nominees before they're even named — as some liberals have demanded during the mass protests over the last month.
Republicans are turning up the pressure too, especially on Democrats up for 2018 elections in states Trump won, like Missouri.
“Claire McCaskill needs to explain to Missouri voters if she will once again side with the Washington liberal elite and obstruct President Trump's pick for the Supreme Court," Katie Martin, communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement.
McCaskill has voted for some of Trump's cabinet nominees, like Defense Secretary James Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, and is opposing others, like Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson and Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos.
