Durbin and Duckworth vote against Gorsuch; he’s confirmed 54-45

Illinous senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth voted against the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court on Friday, but he was confirmed by a 54-45 vote.

The simple-majority vote, mostly along party lines, was taken 14 months after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016.

Republicans, denying President Barack Obama the chance to fill the seat by refusing to give nominee Merrick Garland a hearing, had kept it open and turned it into an election-year issue. Gorsuch’s confirmation occurred one day after Republicans removed the 60-vote threshold to filibuster Supreme Court nominees in order to install him with a simple majority vote.

At a March 20 hearing, Durbin focused on what he considered was Gorsuch’s rulings in favor of corporations at the expense of average people. He drew attention to a case in which Gorsuch ruled that it was lawful for a company to fire a truck driver for abandoning his trailer in minus-14 degree weather when hauling it prohibited him from finding shelter when no one was coming to his aid.

“Like other Republican nominees that have come before this Committee, you invoke the supposedly neutral philosophies of ‘originalism’ and ‘textualism.’ But somehow time after time these doctrines lead you to the same outcome- the company wins and the worker, the victim, and the consumer lose to the corporate elite,” Durbin said.

On Tuesday, Duckworth spoke against Gorsuch during a “Women’s Power Hour,” an event in which she and other senators focused on equal pay for women and reproductive health.

“In a dissenting opinion, he argued in favor of defunding Planned Parenthood in Utah based on evidence that other judges deemed as false,” she said. “In the Hobby Lobby case, he made it clear that he favors the religious beliefs of corporations over the rights of women to make their own choices about their bodies.”

Gorsuch is expected to take his Supreme Court seat early next week.

This story was originally published April 7, 2017 at 11:16 AM with the headline "Durbin and Duckworth vote against Gorsuch; he’s confirmed 54-45."