Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) Image by getty images

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Thursday he will vote ‘no’ on Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court and hinted he will force the vote to filibuster, requiring Republicans to garner 60 votes to confirm the candidate.

Republicans control 52 seats in the Senate.

In a speech in the Senate, Schumer cited the Gorsuch’s “lack of candor” in the hearings and a “deep-seated conservative ideology.”

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“Judge Gorsuch was unable to sufficiently convince me that he’d be an independent check on a president who has shown almost no restraint from executive overreach,” Schumer said. “He is someone who almost instinctively favors the powerful over the weak, corporations over working Americans.”

After careful deliberation, I have concluded that I cannot support Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) March 23, 2017

For months, Senate Republicans have threatened what is often called the “nuclear option” – exempting Supreme Court nominees from filibusters. “If this nominee cannot earn 60 votes, a bar met by each of President Obama’s nominees and George Bush’s last two nominees, the answer isn’t to change the rules,” Schumer said. “It’s to change the nominee.”

Contact Shira Hanau at [email protected]

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