The Senate has cleared the way for a Friday confirmation vote on President Donald Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court.
He replaces the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who's sudden death in February 2016 sparked a yearlong partisan fight over the ideological balance of the court.
The change allowed the Senate to proceed to the final vote with a simple majority.
Gorusch's confirmation happened after Republicans triggered the nuclear option yesterday - forever changing Senate rules for filibusters of future Supreme Court nominees. The seat earmarked for Garland is now going to Gorsuch, after Trump was made President. Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson missed the vote.
Illustrating the importance of the moment, Vice President Mike Pence served as the Senate's presiding officer during the vote. Among them: his conservative judicial philosophy as expressed in his 10 years on the bench, his evasive answers during the confirmation hearing and a burning resentment at the Republicans' unprecedented refusal for almost a year to even hold a hearing on Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Trump himself predicted to reporters aboard Air Force One that "there could be as many as four" Supreme Court vacancies for him to fill during his administration.
Trump has recorded accomplishments since taking office on January 20, including a variety of unilateral executive actions such as moving to undo Obama's climate change regulations.
In part Democrats opposed the nomination because Senate Republicans blocked former president Barack Obama's nominee Merrick Garland previous year.
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The majority leader argued that ending the filibuster for high court nominees will actually decrease partisan tensions in the Senate and return the upper chamber to a time when filibusters weren't so commonly used to block nominations. The court also is likely to tackle transgender rights and union funding in coming years.
Gorsuch, 49, a Denver-based judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, became the 113th Supreme Court justice Friday.
Democrats accused Gorsuch of being so conservative as to be outside the judicial mainstream, favoring corporate interests over ordinary Americans in legal opinions, and displaying insufficient independence from Trump. He is expected to be sworn in Monday, in time to hear the final cases of the term. He can then prepare for the court's next session of oral arguments, starting on April 17.
Republicans, determined to restore the conservative tilt of the Supreme Court since Scalia's unexpected death, worked in lockstep Thursday to see that Gorsuch would ultimately be confirmed.
"I fear very much that (Gorsuch) will be part of an extreme right-wing majority that will attack workers' rights, women's rights and environmental protection as well as make our political system less democratic", said Sen.
After the rules change, Gorsuch is expected to be confirmed Friday. He is an expansive thinker and a facile writer whose law clerks often go on to bigger and better things - including similar postings at the Supreme Court.
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