The Senate voted Friday to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch to be the next Supreme Court Justice after an intensely partisan debate over the last month during his confirmation hearings and on the Senate floor.
In a 54 to 45 vote, the Senate confirmed President Donald Trump's nominee to the nation's highest court. Gorsuch will be filling the seat of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who unexpectedly passed away last February.
Friday's vote was made possible after Senate Republicans on Thursday voted 52 to 48 to trigger the so-called nuclear option, which modified Senate rules to lower the necessary threshold for cloture from 60 votes to a simple majority of 51 votes.
The move was meant to overcome a filibuster effort by Senate Democrats, who themselves had initiated the nuclear option three and a half years ago, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Senate Democrats first employed the nuclear option back in 2013 to advance former President Obama's judicial nominations, although the Supreme Court was not included in the rule change. The move was used to circumvent Republican efforts to filibuster some of Obama's nominees
Three and a half years later, Democrats have threatened to filibuster the nomination of Gorsuch, President Trump's pick for the nation's highest court. The Senate's 52 Republicans threatened to use the nuclear option to break the filibuster and did so on Thursday.