Years from now, April 6, 2017, will be remembered as the day the Senate changed forever. After three decades of warring over judicial nominees, Democrats finally brought America to the brink in the fiercest political fight of a generation. “I had hoped that we could do what we had done in the past,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said regretfully, “and that was reach some agreement. And we haven’t, so it’s permanent damage to the body.”

In a clash more than four years in the making, Democrats broke with more than two centuries of tradition and blocked the vote of a Supreme Court nominee. And while it’s never been done before, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) guaranteed it will never be done again. “This will be the first and last partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nomination,” McConnell promised. He put his finger on the nuclear trigger — the same procedural bomb Democrats dropped in 2013 — and never looked back.

Of course, the Left has no one to blame for this brave new world but itself. It put the Senate on this path in 2013, when it blew up the process to end the filibuster for lower court nominees. Now, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) would do anything to turn back time. “I wish we hadn’t triggered the ‘nuclear option’… [I] wish it hadn’t happened,” he admitted in January. Liberals have never hesitated to use their power — or misuse it — to achieve their ends. That includes rewriting the rules that require 60 votes to end the debate on a nomination. When Democrats controlled the Senate, they lowered the threshold to 51 — a decision that came back to haunt them Thursday morning, when Republicans reminded them that what goes around comes around.

With complicated maneuvers and points of order, Sen. McConnell established a new precedent for every future nominee to the highest court in America: a simple majority to end debate. While Republicans worked with Democrats to confirm Justices Kagan and Sotomayor, Democrats have proven that they’re unwilling to put partisanship aside on Judge Gorsuch’s nomination. In a statement before the showdown, McConnell — like many senators — expressed some regret that it had come to this. After 30 years of watching the process veer to a political breaking point the Founders never intended, the majority leader had little choice but to act.

“The Senate has considered the nomination of Neil Gorsuch for many weeks,” Leader McConnell said. “We’ve seen his impressive credentials, we’ve reviewed his incredible record, we’ve heard glowing praise on a nearly daily basis from colleagues and students, from judges, newspaper editorials, from Democrats and from Republicans. Judge Gorsuch is independent, and he’s fair. He’s beyond qualified and he’ll make a stellar addition to the Supreme Court. Hardly anyone in the legal community seems to argue otherwise, and yet our Democratic colleagues appeared poised to block this incredible nominee with the first successful partisan filibuster in America history. It would be a radical move, something completely unprecedented in the history of our Senate, and out of all proportion to the imminently qualified judge who is actually before us. But then again, this isn’t really about the nominee anyway. The opposition to this particular nominee is more about the man that nominated him and the party he represents than the nominee himself. It’s part of a much larger story: another extreme escalation in the Left’s never-ending drive to politicize the courts and the confirmation process. It’s a fight they have waged for decades with a singular aim, security raw power no matter the cost to the country or the institution. It underlies why this threatened filibuster cannot be allowed to success or to continue for the sake of the Senate, for the sake of the Court, and for the sake of our country.”

At least four Democrats tried to keep the bitter feud from reaching a point of no return. Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Michael Bennet (CO), Joe Manchin (WV), and Joe Donnelly (IN) all voted to give Gorsuch an up-or-down vote. But they were four colleagues short of stopping the runaway train. For now, one thing is assured: Judge Gorsuch will get a fair shot at continuing the great originalist legacy of the late Antonin Scalia. And based on what FRC’s Travis Weber has observed, no one could do the seat more proud. Check out his take on an overlooked trait of the 49-year-old circuit judge in The Hill, “The Bigly and Necessary Humility of Judge Gorsuch.”

Originally published here.

The Church in a Lurch Under Johnson Amendment

If you want to know how much political influence evangelicals have, check out the movement to stop the Johnson Amendment’s repeal. After an election that showed the impact of conservative Christians, liberals are doing everything they can to keep the church in check. And by “in check,” they mean silent. For decades, the IRS has partnered with the Left in that fight, threatening to strip any number of churches’ tax exempt statuses for speaking openly about the moral issues of the day. Of course, the irony of this whole debate is that pulpits are free to do exactly that under the U.S. Constitution. It was only when liberals seized on this twisted interpretation of the Johnson Amendment that pastors came under fire for exercising their God-given rights.

Now, 99 radical religious groups are lining up to oppose one of the president’s top priorities: rewriting this small piece of the tax code to give churches the freedom to speak without fear on issues like life, marriage, and sexuality from a biblical perspective. That’s odd, some of you are probably thinking. After all, don’t liberal pastors want those same rights? Yes, and they’ve been enjoying them. The target is — and has been — on the backs of conservative evangelical churches, particularly as the culture wars have heated up. It’s time, President Trump believes, to extend that same privilege to every church without fear of government punishment. The fact of the matter is that Christians — or any believers — don’t check their free speech at the parking lot of their church. And the same is true of pastors. Their rights don’t disappear the second the pulpit mic goes live.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), and Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) think it’s high time someone clarified the law — which is exactly what their Free Speech Fairness Act aims to do. Instead of abolishing the amendment, it fixes it so that the IRS can’t be used as a club to beat believers over the head. And at least two of the country’s biggest state leaders think it’s time Congress got on with passing it. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) sent a joint letter to Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) agreeing with Trump that “Congress should ‘totally destroy’ the Johnson Amendment.”

Throughout our nation’s history,“ they write, "churches have played a significant role in American politics and were the driving forces behind abolitionists of the mid-1800s and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s… We can all agree that while ‘[c]ommitted followers of the same faith, and even the same local faith community, may disagree on the issues and the candidates who represent them; nonetheless faith has much to say about what they do the first Tuesday of November.’ But for 60 years, the Johnson Amendment has thwarted that discussion… Religious liberty is a cornerstone of our Republic. From the birth of the nation until passage of the Johnson Amendment, churches and pastors played a vital role in bringing a faith perspective to the pressing political issues of the day. Since the Johnson Amendment, however, churches have been kept on the sidelines of the political debate. The Free Speech Fairness Act will correct that and ensure churches may once again freely participate in government.”

Originally published here.

Target Takes Stock of the Damage

It only takes one look at The Wall Street Journal’s bar graph to debunk every Target soundbite since last year. After the retailer opened its restroom and changing room doors to both men and women, there’s no hiding the impact of the near 1.5 million-person boycott. “Target picked a side and pretty much said to the rest of us that we don’t matter,” said one North Carolina shopper. “They should have just left it as.” Privately, I’m sure the company agrees. The only thing lower than the stores’ stock is its reputation. Read about the incredible backlash in the Journal’s article, “How Target Botched Its Response to the North Carolina Bathroom Law” here.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.