Chuck Schumer says Democrats will try to block Amy Coney Barrett by not giving the Republicans a quorum

The battle over the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court got underway today and the Democrats are prepared to use any means at their disposal to prevent Donald Trump’s nominee from making it to the highest court in the land.

Nancy Pelosi promised her supporters that the Democrats had many arrows in their quivers (sounds racist to me…) and now we are learning that one of them may be to attempt to block the nomination by not providing the Republicans with a quorum to move forward. Here is what Chuck Schumer said last night:

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats will not “supply quorum” for votes in the Senate as a way to try and block the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett before the election.

Senate Democrats will do everything they can to prevent Barrett from being confirmed. Schuner went on to say that one way Democrats are considering blocking the confirmation is by not supplying quorum, meaning Democrats would not show up so work could not be done.

The quorum in the Senate is 51 members. There are 22 members on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is in charge of the confirmation process, and nine members are required for a quorum in the committee, including at least two from the minority party

“We will talk about when the actual vote occurs in committee and on the floor. Democrats will not supply the quorum,” Schumer said during the press conference. “Period.”

Honestly, this is the move I was waiting for and wondering about. I am surprised it took the Democrats this long to pull that arrow out of the quiver, I figured it would be the first shot fired. Without a quorum nothing can be done in the Congress and the Republicans do not have enough members on their own to provide a quorum without Democratic support. At least the way the rules are now, but according to the above-linked story the rules can be changed.

Republicans could create and vote on a new rule to end the quorum in committee, or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could introduce a discharge resolution that would make it so there would no longer need to be a committee process and the nomination could be brought to a full vote

The question is will Mitch McConnell have the guts to make such a rule change less than a month before the election knowing the backlash the Republicans will face from the Democrats and potentially from the voters? This high stakes cat and mouse game is just getting underway and it promises to get very interesting and very ugly, very quickly…

malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium