Rounds and Thune Change 200-Year-Old Rule to Ram Court Nominee Through Senate
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – The South Dakota Democratic Party released the following statement responding to Senators Mike Rounds and John Thune voting to change a 200-year-old Senate rule to ram Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court through the United States Senate:
“There is a reason this move is called the ‘nuclear option’ – it is a drastic, unprecedented step. This is just one more example of Mike Rounds, John Thune, and the rest of the extreme and out-of-touch Republican establishment in Washington making up their own rules when the old ones get in their way. If a nominee for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the nation cannot secure the votes of 60 senators, the nominee should be changed, not the rules. By their votes today to invoke the ‘nuclear option,’ Senators Rounds and Thune have shown they care more about the big-money corporate interests behind this nomination than the democratic institutions and procedures which have guided our country for over 200 years.”
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