Now that President Trump has picked Judge Gorsuch to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court, Democrats face a difficult decision. Within their meeting rooms, they’re asking whether they should fight President Trump’s pick or whether they should try to push Judge Gorsuch enough to please their special interest puppeteers.

It isn’t difficult to figure out which camp Sen. Franken is in. In his statement after the announcement, Sen. Franken said “Long before his election, President Trump promised to appoint a Supreme Court justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia, who held a deeply conservative view of the Constitution and the Court. In the coming weeks, I will be closely examining Neil Gorsuch’s background, but I have serious concerns about his judicial philosophy-especially on issues like access to justice, corporate accountability, workers’ rights, and women’s health. I was hopeful that the President would have selected someone like Merrick Garland, a consensus candidate lauded by the same Republicans who ultimately refused to hold a hearing on him for nearly a year.”

I wish someone would explain to Sen. Franken that Supreme Court justices aren’t supposed to be legislators. That’s his job, at least for a little while longer. Another perspective is whether Democrats should push Judge Gorsuch a little before caving.

That’s apparently what Sen. Durbin is thinking:

Only 12 days into this administration, we’ve already seen unlawful executive orders blocked by a federal court, and the unprecedented dismissal of an Attorney General for disagreeing with the president. I believe the independence of our judicial system, and especially the Supreme Court, is more critical now than at any time in recent history. That is the context in which I will review this nomination.

I will meet with Judge Gorsuch and support a hearing and a vote for him — both of which were denied to an eminently qualified nominee presented by President Obama. The American people need to know what they can expect from this nominee, and that he will protect our fundamental constitutional rights on issues like voting rights, immigration, privacy, and women’s health. In recent years, the court’s decisions have shifted dramatically toward big money corporate interests at the expense of American workers and small businesses — we need a Court that is on the side of Main Street, not Wall Street. This Supreme Court seat does not belong to President Trump or to any political party. It belongs to the American people, and I will work to make sure their voices are heard in this debate.

This article suggests that Democrats will back off. I’ll believe it when I see it.