Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) just cast the fifty-first vote for the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to be an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, ending a contentious political fight between the left and the right over the future of the Supreme Court that began with the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February 2016.
The NRA went all-in on this fight, working behind the scenes to ensure that President Obama’s anti-gun nominee, Merrick Garland, was not confirmed, and then endorsing President Trump’s nomination of Judge Gorsuch earlier this year. This can only be seen as a big win for the nation’s oldest civil rights organization and, one hopes, the right to keep and bear arms, generally.
Yesterday, the Senate cleared the way for the approval by amending its rules to eliminate the use of the judicial filibuster on Supreme Court nominations. My own take on Gorsuch’s philosophy and past history as a jurist can be found here and here. The final vote count was 54 ayes, 45 nays.