The United States Senate voted Thursday to initiate what has become known as the “nuclear option,” a measure that overturned existing Senate rules concerning the filibuster and may lead to a path of confirmation for Supreme Court judge nominee Neil Gorsuch.

The rule change allows the Republican-majority Senate to end debate over the Supreme Court nominee with a vote of 51 out of 100 rather than the formerly required “supermajority” of 60 votes out of 100. Republicans and Democrats voted along party lines on the rule change, with a vote of 52 to 48, respectively.

It’s a significant change for the Senate, which has historically approved justices with substantial bipartisan support. Most recently, Supreme Court Justice Elena Karan was approved in 2010 with a vote of 63 to 37 and a Supreme Court nominee has received unanimous support — a vote of 97 to 0 — as recently as 1987, with the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

While the “nuclear option” may seem dramatic, the Senate’s vote was hardly a surprise. Democrats had been mulling the idea of filibuster-ing Gorsuch’s confirmation since President Donald Trump nominated him in late January. But it became a reality when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY., voiced his party’s intent to filibuster late last month. And earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., officially began the process of expelling the rule.

While certainly a partisan decision for the Republicans, it’s one that senators from both parties remain skeptical of and a measure that senators believe could result in more partisan judges.

“I believe our actions will haunt us,” said Arizona Sen. John McCain before the vote. “We will see more and more nominees from the extremes of both left and right.”Nonetheless, McCain voted for the rule change, one that he afterwards told a reporter for The Independent Journal Review is a “slippery slope.”

The Democrats, however, are not blameless when it comes to the institution of the nuclear option, and were actually the first to invoke a similar measure in 2013. Then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid eliminated filibusters for all non-Supreme Court presi-dential nominations. At the time, then-Minority Leader McConnell, R-Ky., foreshadowed the action taken by the Senate Thursday.

“You will no doubt come to regret this,” McConnell said in 2013. “And you may regret it a lot sooner than you think.”

Still, Democrats likely felt an obligation to filibuster Gorsuch’s nomination at the cost of the long-standing rule after what they saw as the obstruction of former President Barack Obama’s 2016 Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, who was nominated shortly after the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Senate Republicans blocked Garland’s nomination for nearly a year on the basis that a Supreme Court nomination should not be made in the final year of a presidency. Some Democrats also had concerns about Go-such’s stance on issues such as marriage equality and a woman’s right to choose, while others simply wanted to block the nomination of a judge made by a president they see as illegitimate.

While this may seem like a major loss for the Democrats, others see it as a rule change that would have taken place regardless of the party in charge. The New York Times reported Thursday that, had Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won the election, Democrats would likely be facing the same dilemma in confirming a judge that Senate Republicans have faced in the lead-up to Gorsuch’s confirmation.

While it’s unclear what the longstanding effect to the Senate may be, it is once again disappointing to see another American political institution jettison a rule that required lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to compromise on what’s best for the American people. At a time of division in America, cooperation should be embraced rather than abandoned in favor of the path of least resistance.