What Senate’s 50-50 Split Means for Biden Supreme Court Pick

Evenly divided between the two major parties, the U.S. Senate has operated for more than a year under a power-sharing arrangement that gives Democrats a leg up (thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote) but makes Republicans more than a silent minority. That’s the backdrop as the Senate weighs whether to confirm President Joe Biden’s choice for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. Though Democrats expect their narrow advantage to be enough to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson, “there are some wrinkles” they have to consider, said Sarah Binder, a political science professor at George Washington University.

On their own, the Senate’s 50 Republicans probably can’t stand in the way of confirmation, but they can slow the process down. They could, for instance, deny a quorum to the Senate Judiciary Committee when it votes whether to send Jackson’s nomination to the full Senate. Senate rules dictate that committees need a majority to be “physically present” to recommend a nominee. The committee is evenly divided, with 11 members of each party, as a result of the power-sharing accord between Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican. Some Republicans on the committee have explicitly ruled out such a boycott.