Calm before storm? How Senate could change after Barrett confirmation.

The last time a Supreme Court nominee came before the Senate Judiciary Committee, it was open warfare in the hearing room, as nominee Brett Kavanaugh faced last-minute allegations of sexual assault.

“Boy, y’all want power. God, I hope you never get it,” Sen. Lindsey Graham raged at Democrats over their treatment of the nominee two years ago.

This time around, the Republican senator from South Carolina, now the committee chairman, has pronounced the hearing “very good” with “very good questions, hard questions.” In contrast to 2018, the tone is respectful – in part because no one is challenging the character of Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

But make no mistake. The judicial wars in the Senate have not subsided. In a body that has applied the term “nuclear option” to its consideration of nominees, some Democrats are now talking about detonating more procedural bombs: getting rid of the 60-vote threshold informally required to pass most legislation, known as the filibuster, and increasing the number of Supreme Court justices so a Biden administration could

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