Indiana state senators urge Donnelly, Young to vote for Gorsuch

Some Indiana state senators are urging U.S. Senators Joe Donnelly and Todd Young to vote for President Donald Trump's Supreme Court pick.

On Monday, State Sen. James Buck, R- Kokomo, called for Donnelly (a Democrat) and Young (a Republican) to consider  the will of the Indiana Legislature when voting on Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.

Senate Resolution 24 cited the unanimous approval of Gorsuch in 2006 to the U.S. Court of Appeals and how uncommon rejections are for a Supreme Court nominee as reasons why Donnelly and Young should vote for Gorsuch.

Both Young and Donnelly met with the nominee last week. While Young spoke highly of him, Donnelly has not said whether he will vote for the judge.

“I take my responsibility seriously to consider judicial nominees, including to the Supreme Court," Donnelly said in a statement after the meeting. "As I have said, part of my job as senator is to meet, consider, debate, and vote on judicial nominations. I will continue to carefully review Judge Gorsuch’s record and qualifications in the coming weeks and will be following his hearing before the Judiciary Committee.”

Neither Donnelly nor Young commented on the resolution's 6-2 passage out of committee.

Already Donnelly has received pressure to not allow a filibuster against Gorsuch's nomination. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the political arm of Senate Republicans, launched an ad earlier this month to remind the Donnelly of previous calls he made to act quickly on Supreme Court nominees.

“When there’s a new president and that president nominates somebody, I’ll vote yes or no on that person as well,” Donnelly says in the ad. “We don’t have the option to just stick it in a drawer for the next year and pretend it’s not there.”

Republicans need eight Democrats to join them in the vote in order to avoid a filibuster. Donnelly has voted no against six of Trump's cabinet picks, but has voted in favor of seven others. As the only Indiana Democrat elected to Washington, Donnelly's vote could carry extra weight.

Young also met with Gorsuch last week and spoke highly of the nominee.

"I expected him to be incredibly impressive but his command of the law, his rigor of interpreting the constitution and statutes was incredibly impressive to me," Young said in a video statement. " ... Perhaps most importantly from my standpoint, he understands the job of a judge is not to write laws, but instead to interpret them and apply them to the facts of any given case."

Not all senators were happy state lawmakers were involving themselves in the matter. Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, brought up that there was no resolution last year when former President Barack Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

"We are not U.S. senators," Taylor said. "I have never seen a resolution like this ... This is a waste of time and for that reason I'm going to vote no."

Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill plans to join in Indiana elected officials' plea to approve Gorsuch and will have a joint press conference with Judicial Crisis Network on Wednesday.

Indy Star reporter Maureen Groppe contributed to this story.