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RNC Highlights Democrats' 'Hypocrisy' Over SCOTUS Nominee Filibuster

February 1, 2017

The Republican National Committee released a video Wednesday castigating Senate Democrats' "supreme hypocrisy" over statements on President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch.

Senate Democrats, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), have vowed to oppose Gorsuch's nomination to the nation's highest court.

In a statement released after the announcement, Gillibrand declared that she would not be supporting Gorsuch's nomination because his opinions "are outside of the mainstream."

"In a direct contradiction to their calls last year to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, the Democrats' new threat to filibuster President Donald J. Trump's Supreme Court nominee is hypocrisy at its finest," recently elected RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement.

The new video from the RNC includes clips of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy (Vt.), and Sen. Warren. The clips come from a variety of television appearances and Senate floor speeches in which lawmakers urged their Republican colleagues to hold hearings and votes on President Obama's Supreme Court nominee from last year, Judge Merrick Garland.

Republican senators would not hold a hearing or vote on Garland's nomination because the vacancy in the Supreme Court had occurred during an election year. Republicans argued that voters should have a choice in choosing who appoints the judge to fill the vacancy left with the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

"Making their voices heard last November, voters across the country elected President Trump largely because of his promise to nominate a principled constitutionalist to the Supreme Court: Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination fulfills that promise," McDaniel said in her statement. She also criticized Senate Democrats for "playing political games" with the nation's highest court.

Gorsuch graduated from Harvard Law School, where he was a classmate of former President Obama, and has served as a judge on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since 2006. He has received nearly unanimous praise from elected Republicans and has been described as one who shares the same legal philosophy as Scalia.