Nuclear option
Definition
The nuclear option is a procedural maneuver where a simple majority of the Senate votes to establish a new precedent reinterpreting its own rules, most notably lowering the votes needed for cloture on nominations, instead of formally changing the written rule, which would require a two-thirds vote.
Why it matters
It lets whichever party holds a bare Senate majority permanently lower the bar for confirming nominees without bipartisan buy-in, which is why both parties have used it once they held the votes and criticized it when they didn't.
Seen in the wild
Senate Democrats invoked the nuclear option in November 2013 to lower the cloture threshold to a simple majority for most nominations excluding the Supreme Court, and Senate Republicans extended it to Supreme Court nominations in April 2017 during Neil Gorsuch's confirmation.1