Politico reports:

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) won’t endorse a strategy to indefinitely block any Supreme Court nominee from Hillary Clinton — instead indicating he would keep an open mind on whomever she may choose should she win the White House next Tuesday.
In recent days, more Senate Republicans have suggested that any justice Clinton may nominate for the Supreme Court would face indefinite resistance, leaving open the possibility that the court would remain short-handed under a Clinton presidency. But some conservatives, like Cotton and Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said Thursday they do not support a strategy of a blanket blockade.
Cotton emphasizes that he’s unlikely to help confirm a nominee from Clinton anyway, considering what the Democratic candidate has said about the kinds of justices she would prefer. Still, the freshman Arkansas senator wasn’t going along with comments from Republicans such as Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina and Ted Cruz of Texas that hinted at a permanent blockade of a potential Clinton nominee.
“I’ll consider any nominee on his or her own merits,” Cotton said in a phone interview with POLITICO on Thursday.

Clinton has said that her nominees to the Supreme Court will be selected on the basis of their agreement with liberal positions (“I have a bunch of litmus tests”). Burr, Cotton, Cruz, and Inhofe will all almost certainly vote against such nominees, as in my view they should. Cotton and Inhofe are explicitly leaving the door slightly ajar if Clinton retreats from her stated views about judicial selection. The difference between Cotton and Inhofe on the one hand and Burr and Cruz on the other seems purely rhetorical. I haven’t yet seen conservatives get upset with Cotton and Inhofe, and they shouldn’t. Liberals have been freaking out about Burr and Cruz, but all four senators are just articulating in their different ways what is now a common practice of senators in both parties toward Supreme Court nominees from the other side.