Via a Washington Post news alert:

Four more Senate Democrats confirmed they will support a filibuster of Neil Gorsuch’s nomination, giving the minority party the requisite 41 votes to maintain their procedural roadblock under pressure from Republicans. The rules change known as ‘nuclear option’ would allow Republicans to proceed with this and potentially future Supreme Court nominees on a simple majority vote, upending a long-standing Senate tradition that forces the governing party to seek bipartisan support.

Mitch McConnell has vowed to push the nomination through regardless. It remains to be seen if that happens. Mitch McConnell is a shallow and flimsy vessel into which to empty your hopes and dreams. The GOP senator with appreciable qualms over breaking the filibuster is Susan Collins and she now seems resigned to doing so:

Even Susan Collins, considered the GOP senator most reticent over nuke option, signals openness to it https://t.co/ZvtZiMFsCN pic.twitter.com/zljQDITs17

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) March 27, 2017

If McConnell succeeds, this is a sad day in many ways.

The Founders had always thought of the Senate as the place where cooler heads would prevail. That’s why they were elected for six-year terms. That’s why they were to be elected by state legislators. Progressives decided that direct election of senators was the way to go and now we’re seeing the logical consequence: a house of Congress with long terms of office but which is every bit as partisan at the House of Representatives. It is a situation where the Senate has all the vices of the House but none of the virtues of either the present House or the Senate of yesteryear.

My hope was that enough RedState Democrat senators would break ranks to preserve a very good break on crappy judges being confirmed to the bench (though, I suppose one could say looking at present Supreme Court and the federal appeals courts it wasn’t successful more often than a coin toss)