WASHINGTON _ Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri told donors during a private fundraiser that Democrats' attempts to block President Donald Trump's Supreme Court pick could backfire, according to leaked audio of her remarks.
The Democratic senator, up for re-election in 2018 after Trump won Missouri by 19 points, has so far been tight-lipped in public about where she stands on the Supreme Court fight. The remarks, first published Thursday by The Kansas City Star using audio provided by the Missouri Republican Party, portrays her most candid comments on the issue to date.
Some Democratic senators, still incensed that Republicans blocked then-President Barack Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, have threatened to filibuster Trump's pick, U.S. appeals court Judge Neil Gorsuch.
So far only two Democrats have announced they will support Gorsuch, and the upper chamber's 52 Republicans would need at least eight Democratic votes to meet the 60-vote threshold to end a filibuster _ leading some in the GOP to threaten the so-called nuclear option of changing Senate rules to push through Supreme Court nominees on a simple majority vote.
In the leaked audio, McCaskill said she sympathized with the liberal base voters who wanted "to take a scalp" as payback for Judge Merrick Garland, Obama's nominee. And she said some of Gorsuch's "really disturbing" rulings have given her enough reason to vote against him.
She pointed to his opinion in favor of a company that fired a trucker for abandoning his cargo after his trailer broke down in below-freezing temperatures, and to a decision he authored siding with a Colorado school district over parents who said their autistic child wasn't getting the education he deserved. But she wondered what a filibuster would accomplish.
"There is enough in his record that gives me pause," she said. "So I am very comfortable voting against him, but I'm very uncomfortable being part of a strategy that's going to open up the Supreme Court to a complete change."
Even if Senate Democrats somehow derail Gorsuch's nomination, McCaskill said it's not clear what would come next.
"Let's assume for the purposes of this discussion that we turn down Gorsuch, that there are not eight Democrats that vote to confirm him and therefore there's not enough to put him on the Supreme Court. What then?" she said in the audio. "So they move it to 51 votes and they confirm either Gorsuch or they confirm the one after Gorsuch."
Gorsuch would replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the court's leading conservatives. The stakes could be higher the next time a seat becomes empty, McCaskill said, especially if it's vacated by one of the court's liberals.
"God forbid, Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies. Or (Anthony) Kennedy retires. Or (Stephen) Breyer has a stroke or is no longer able to serve. Then we're not talking about Scalia for Scalia, which is what Gorsuch is, we're talking about Scalia for somebody on the court who shares our values. And then all of a sudden the things I fought for, with scars on my back to show (for) it in this state, are in jeopardy," she said in the audio.
McCaskill's spokesman John LaBombard said the senator has still not decided how she will vote on the filibuster or the nomination.
"This is just Claire giving an honest answer to a question, same as always," he said. "She was asked about the lay of the land with the Gorsuch nomination, and she gave her thoughts. She didn't say how she was going to vote, because she hasn't decided yet. But when she does, she'll be fully candid with Missourians about what went into her decision, same as always."
