The Senate has confirmed Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, bringing a contentious 14-month partisan battle to a close after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
The Senate's 100 member was recorded as absent and not voting - Republican Sen.
Mcconnel had earlier condemned the Republicans' move, saying they need to restore the norms and traditions of the senate and get past the unprecedented partisan filibuster.
Leonard Leo, Trump's Supreme Court adviser, praised Gorsuch, as well as McConnell for turning the key on the nuclear option to break the filibuster.
"President Trump, Senator Grassley, and Senate Republicans won their vote today, but the American people lost".
McConnell himself told reporters Friday that "the most consequential decision I've ever been involved in was the decision to let the president being elected previous year pick the Supreme Court nominee".
And so, abetted by a lot of rule-breaking, Gorsuch will join the Court as soon as he can be sworn in, and will likely be present when all nine Justices hold a crucial conference next week to determine which cases they will hear during the fall term.
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Vice-President Mike Pence was presiding as the Senate voted 54-45 in favour of Gorsuch, a veteran of Denver's 10th U.S. Circuit of Appeals whose conservative rulings make him an intellectual heir to Scalia, who died in February 2016.
Democrats opposed Gorsuch's nomination, in part, because Trump selected him from a list compiled by right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society. In this case, the Democrats were filibustering to keep Judge Neil Gorsuch off the high court.
Judge Neil Gorsuch addresses the media after President Donald Trump nominated him to the Supreme Court on January 31. GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who has been recovering from back surgery, did not vote. In the future, I will not be alone in wondering how many right-leaning 5-4 Supreme Court decisions with Justice Gorsuch in the majority would have been decided differently had Judge Garland been granted a hearing and confirmed.
It was the longest period a seat has remained unfilled on the Supreme Court since during the American Civil War in 1862.
The confirmation wins them control of a court which is the final arbiter on the most controversial United States legal issues. However, after 2018, the Senate map becomes hostile to Republicans in upcoming elections, which means that Republicans could very well lose the Senate, and their power to obstruct future Democratic nominees.
"In fact, under a certain scenario, there could even be more than that", Trump said.
The three Democrats who voted for Gorsuch were North Dakota's Heidi Heitkamp, West Virginia's Joe Manchin and Indiana's Joe Donnelly - all moderate Democrats facing challenging reelection bids next year in red states.
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