Lindsey Graham is saying the Senate's blocking of a Supreme Court nominee is 'going to be the new rule'

His characterization of the tactic Senate Republicans were taking in vowing to not even to meet with a Supreme Court nominee this year was a shift from how some Republicans initially described it -- that it was a "tradition."

Since the Judiciary Committee began holding hearings for Supreme Court nominations, it has never refused to hold a hearing for a nominee.

Thursday's Judiciary Committee meeting marked the first major opportunity for a public confrontation of Republicans’ vow not to even consider President Obama’s yet-to-be-name nominee to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Republicans insist that they will only confirm a nominee who is chosen by the next president.

The White House, meanwhile, is going forward with its end of the process and is expected to name a nominee in the coming days.

In his remarks Thursday, Graham promised that if a vacancy opened up under a Republican president in the last year of his or her term, he would also refuse to consider a nominee. He also said he would vote to confirm the nominee offered by the next president if that president was a Democrat, as long as nominee was qualified -- and even if the nominee was a liberal judge.