‘You’re Telling Us To Shut Up?!’ Senate Judiciary Hearing Devolves Into Chaos After Dems Block GOP Lawmakers From Debating Judicial Nominations

A Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing went off the rails after the Democratic chair blocked Republican lawmakers from debating judicial nominations on Thursday.

Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) denied a request from his GOP colleagues to discuss judicial nominees, claiming the senators were already given the option to talk about the merits of the nominees.

Following Durbin’s decision, the hearing took a tense turn as lawmakers began accusing the Democratic chair of “destroying the United States Senate Judiciary Committee,” according to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) predicted that the chair’s decision would come back to hurt Democrats in the future.

“You’re going to have a lot of consequences coming if you go down this road,” said Cotton during the Thursday hearing. “Listen to me, I’ve cautioned a lot of you.”

Durbin justified his actions before the meeting by telling reporters it would have taken hours to sort out the 177 amendments filed by Republicans.

At one point Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) asked Durbin, “So you’re telling us to shut up? You want us to shut up? That’s what you’re saying.” Her comments were ignored by the chair, leading to Cotton accusing Democrats of not wanting women to speak as Republicans continued shouting objections during the roll call votes.

“You’re just going to sit there and ignore us?” Cotton added. “I guess Sen. Durbin is not going to let women speak either. I thought that was sacrosanct in your party.”

The panel voted on the judicial nominations of Mustafa Taher Kasubhai for the job of U.S. district for the District of Oregon and Eumi Lee for U.S. district judge for the Northern District of California. The candidates were approved on party-line votes with both individuals receiving 11 “yes” votes from Democrats.

Durbin noted that the nominees needed another voting round because previously two Democratic senators had voted for them by proxy, but later requested to vote for them in-person. However, the Illinois senator denied Republicans from debating the nominees due to prior deliberations.

Watch the full clip above via CSPAN.