Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY., suggested yesterday that Democrats would consider raising the threshold required to end a filibuster of Supreme Court nominees back to a three-fifths majority (typically 60) if they control the Senate after next month's midterm elections. A simple-majority (usually 51) is currently required for ending a filibuster during the consideration of any presidential nomination after Democrats and Republicans used the nuclear option to lower it from a three-fifths majority in 2013 and 2017, respectively. If they reversed the nuclear option next year, Democrats would, in effect, bring Senate practice back into alignment with its Standing Rules.
Schumer's comments prompted a number of people to point out that reversing the nuclear option does not guarantee that another Senate majority won't use it again in the future. Such an observation is correct in so far as nothing can prevent a majority of the Senate's members from using the nuclear option to ignore, circumvent, or otherwise change the institution's rules whenever they think it is in their interest to do so. But that does not mean that it is inevitable that a future majority will use the nuclear option to lower once again the threshold required to end a filibuster.
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