BREAKING: In a shocking moment, Senate DEMs storm out of a hearing to protest the GOP ramming through Emil Bove

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5. Senate rules...

The increasing ideological polarization of the two major political parties in the 21st century raised the stakes for judicial nominations in the Senate, and not just for nominees to the Supreme Court. The pace of confirmation of judges slowed, and lower court nominations for the first time were subjected to filibusters by the minority party, which required a three-fifths majority, or 60 votes, to invoke cloture to end debate. As more and more judicial nominees were left unconfirmed at the end of each session, party leaders threatened to establish new precedents to allow for nominations to go forward by simple majority vote.

In 2013 Senate Democrats used their majority power to trigger the so-called nuclear option, a procedural move that reduced the threshold for ending debate on lower court judicial nominees to a simple majority. After Republicans regained the majority in 2015, the Judiciary Committee took no action to consider President Barack Obama's March 2016 nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. In January 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy, and Senate Republicans deployed the nuclear option to lower the cloture threshold for Supreme Court nominees to a simple majority, leading to confirmation by slim margins of Gorsuch and subsequent nominee Brett Kavanaugh.