Senate Democrats pledge to block Neil Gorsuch's supreme court nomination

Democrats have vowed to block the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the supreme court, raising the prospect of a bitter showdown in the Senate.

The minority leader, Chuck Schumer, the former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania joined colleagues in declaring their opposition to Gorsuch on Thursday.

“After careful deliberation, I have concluded that I cannot support Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the supreme court,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “He will have to earn 60 votes for confirmation. My vote will be ‘no’ and I urge my colleagues to do the same.”

Republicans have a 52-48 majority in the Senate. But Democrats will insist on 60 votes to clear a procedural move known as a a filibuster to allow a final up-or-down vote on confirming Gorsuch to America’s highest court. Donald Trump has called on Republicans to change the rules to allow a simple majority vote on confirmation.

But Schumer pleaded with Republicans not to deploy this so-called “nuclear option”, insisting: “If this nominee cannot earn 60 votes, a bar met by each of President Obama’s nominees, and President Bush’s last two nominees, the answer isn’t to change the rules – it’s to change the nominee.”

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, condemned the move. “We find Senator Schumer’s announcement truly disappointing,” he said, arguing that it breaks with modern tradition. “It represents the kind of partisanship that Americans have grown tired of.”

He added: “We call on Senator Schumer to follow Democrats to abandon this attempt to prevent Judge Gorsuch receiving a fair up and down vote.”

Spicer refused to comment on potential changes to the Senate rules to break the filibuster. “I’m not going to start telling Senator McConnell what he should be doing from here,” he said, referring to Mitch McConnell, the majority leader in the Senate.

No Democrat has yet pledged to vote for Gorsuch and some have expressed disappointment about his Senate confirmation hearing, now in its fourth and final day. Schumer said: “Judge Gorsuch was unable to sufficiently convince me that he’d be an independent check on a president who has shown almost no restraint from executive overreach.”

Sanders added: “He refused to answer legitimate questions and brought the confirmation process to a new low in a thick fog of evasion.”

The Vermont senator “will not support Republican efforts to change the rules to choke off debate and ram the nomination through the Senate”, he said.

The Pennsylvania senator Bob Casey, who faces re-election next year in a state won by Trump, said he had “serious concerns about Judge Gorsuch’s rigid and restrictive judicial philosophy, manifest in a number of opinions he has written on the 10th Circuit.”

Democrats Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Ed Markey of Massachusetts have also vowed to oppose Gorsuch’s nomination.

But conservatives remain hopeful that eight Democrats can be peeled off, enough to avoid a filibuster, despite ongoing rancour over the failure to grant Barack Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland a hearing. The conservative Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia said at a Washington Post Live event on Wednesday: “I want to get a working court, OK? What they did to Merrick Garland was wrong. I don’t want to do the same. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Republicans have lavished praise on Gorsuch and bemoaned what they see as a doomed attempt to politicise what used to be a straightforward process and appease the Democrats’ liberal base.

McConnell criticised “obstructionist tactics”, telling members: “We know that our colleagues are under a great deal of pressure from some on the far left.

“We know some of these groups are calling for them to ‘resist’. We know that – even more than four months after the election — some on the far left simply refuse to accept the outcome of the election. But it’s well past time to move on from that mindset and return to the serious business of governing.”

The threat of a filibuster was also criticised by conservative groups. Carrie Severino, chief counsel of the Judicial Crisis Network, said: “Democrats are proving that they are totally unreasonable when it comes to judicial nominations, and that they will obstruct anyone who does not promise to rubber-stamp their political agenda from the bench.”

During his marathon testimony at the judiciary committee, Democrats have sought to portray Gorsuch, a federal appeals court judge in Denver, as siding with big business over workers and keeping his political views secret.

The 49-year-old has refused repeated attempts to get him to talk about issues including abortion and gay rights, usually by answering: “I have declined to offer any promises, hints or previews of how I’d resolve any case.”

The Democratic senator Al Franken continued to express concern on Thursday, telling one witness: “Basically, what he wouldn’t tell us is any of his personal convictions ... But now, someone who’s endorsing him says they do matter. This is what I worry about, that we were not allowed to hear any of his personal convictions.”

The confirmation hearing continued on Thursday with lawyers, advocacy groups and former colleagues giving testimony. The committee is expected to vote on 3 April to recommend Gorsuch favourably to the full Senate, where a showdown now seems likely.