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Delaware Senator Helps Democrats Put Brakes On Trump's Supreme Court Pick

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court is headed to the full senate this week, after a party-line vote Monday by the Judiciary Committee. But Capitol Hill is bracing for a bigger partisan battle, thanks in part to a move by a Delaware Democrat – and even if it requires a rule change Republicans might come to regret.

In announcing he'll vote against ending debate on President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Senator Chris Coons gives Democrats the magic number to prevent Gorsuch from getting a full yea or nay.

"The traditions and principles that have defined the Senate are crumbling," said Coons, "and we are poised to hasten that destruction this week."

He's referring to the path some Republicans say they're ready to take: what's called the 'nuclear option' — permanently changing the rules so the Senate could end a filibuster of a high court candidate with a simple majority. The GOP has a 52-48 seat advantage.

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Coons says he'd join the filibuster "unless we are able as a body to finally sit down and find a way to avoid the nuclear option and ensure the process to fill the next vacancy on the court is not a narrowly partisan process."

SCOTUS nominees have been rejected in the past, but never filibustered -- though Coons argues the blocking of President Obama's pick, Merrick Garland, amounts to the same thing.

"The reality we are in requires us over the next several days to consider what both Republicans and Democrats are doing to this body," Coons said, "and to consider what both Republicans and Democrats are doing to erode the trust that has long lasted between us."

Majority Democrats in 2013 were first to 'go nuclear,' busting filibusters for most presidential nominations.

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