Area lawmakers react to Gorsuch vote

The decisions to deploy, then jettison, the U.S. Senate filibuster in the United States Supreme Court confirmation fight over Judge Neil Gorsuch brought sharp reactions from Iowa and Illinois lawmakers Thursday, the latest chapter in a battle over the court's makeup that stretches back to last year's death of Antonin Scalia.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican and Judiciary Committee chair who played a key role in the fight, cast blame on Senate Democrats, emphasizing in a floor speech Thursday that they were engaging in the "first partisan filibuster in U.S. history."

He accused Democrats of bowing to their base and seizing on any excuse, for partisan purposes, to deny Gorsuch a seat.

"At the end of the day, we?re left with an exceptional nominee, with impeccable credentials, and broad bipartisan support," Grassley said Thursday.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, said, in fact, what happened Thursday was groundbreaking ? but it was the Republicans who were breaking precedent. He said that it would leave a mark on them.

?President Trump?s nominee could not meet the basic 60-vote standard to which we have held every Supreme Court nominee of either party for the past quarter century. So Senator McConnell changed the rules to push the nomination through. For this, both Judge Gorsuch and Senator McConnell will enter the history books with asterisks by their names,? he said in a statement.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, has complained that Gorsuch refused to meet with her. She said Thursday Republicans "engaged in an unprecedented abuse of power and unraveled a vital check and balance" that insured mainstream justices.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said the episode was proof Democrats would have filibustered any of President Trump?s nominees. ?The election is over and it?s time for Washington to work together ? as our constituents expect us to do ? to fill the Supreme Court vacancy with this eminently qualified nominee,? she said.

Ernst, Grassley, Durbin and Duckworth all voted with their party on whether to cut off debate or keep the 60-vote threshold.

The backdrop to Thursday?s action was last year?s refusal by Republicans to consider President Obama?s nominee to the court, Judge Merrick Garland.

Obama nominated him in March 2016, a month after Scalia's death.

The group Why Courts Matter Iowa, which criticized Grassley over the issue, said in a statement that Thursday?s development ?completes the partisan hatchet job on the independence of the judiciary" that began last year.

Grassley, who argued that no action was being taken on Garland because it was an election year and voters should have a voice in who replaced Scalia, defended the decision this week. He said then-Sen. Joe Biden threatened to do the same thing in 1992.