The Nuclear Option

This coming Tuesday, Senator Frist, the senate majority leader, is likely to push the button and send the Senate into nuclear war.

The fight is over the attempt to eliminate the fillibuster as a tool to allow the minority party to derail judicial nominations they find offensive. 

In the last term the Democrats fillibustered to block 10 out of Bush's 229 appointees.  That doesn't seem like an abuse of the fillibuster tool to me.

Although I am left of center on most issues, I am a centrist at heart.  I like compromise.  I like middle of the road policies and people.

I believe that anything that forces a broader majority to agree on something is a good thing.  Particularly something as important as judicial appointees.

The fact is that the fillibuster has been used for a very long time in the Senate, by both parties.

It is part of the culture of the Senate where compromise and collaboration across the aisles is important.  And that is what makes the Senate so different from the House.

Senator Frist wants to eliminate that culture.  He wants to turn the Senate into another House where majority rules, regardless of how slim that majority is.

In some ways, I am happy they are picking this fight.  Because its another overreach by a party that thinks it has a massive mandate but in reality only got back in the white house by a few percentage points.

They are overplaying their hand just like Newt Gingrich overplayed his contract on america hand in his budget fight with Clinton which shut down the federal government and allowed Clinton to get re-elected with ease.

This time they are going to shut down the Senate.  And I suspect the Democrats are going to hang tough on this one.  What do they have to lose?  They have already been marginalized by Bush and Frist and the rest of the Republicans.  It's time to hang tough and play hardball.

I think the american public is going to side with the Democrats on this one.  I don't think they are going to want to see the Senate throw away its culture, history, and tradition just because Bush and Frist want to ram a bunch of conservative judges down the throats of the American public.

This one is going to be interesting.

Comments

[Chris]

The real problem is that nobody in the Senate actually filibusters anymore, they just threaten to and the other side caves. I'd like to the majority party (whoever that may be at the time) call the bluff and force the minority party to hold the floor. If it means that much to the minority party so be it. However, I bet most of the threatened filibusters would fail to materialize if it involved the Senators doing the real work of holding the floor for an extended time.

[Mike D.]

I probably don't know as much about this as I should, but isn't filibuster just standing up and talking forever so that a vote basically cannot occur? How is that a good thing? If you want to prevent close-call majorities, then just have a rule upping the percentage of votes required to pass something.

Abusing the rules of "unlimited debate" so as to not actually be debating at all anymore seems like an abuse of the system to me... even though it's been clearly going on for many years. Wouldn't you rather have your lawmakers spending their time on other issues?

[Charles Swift]

What I find interesting is that part of the Republican strategy to turn public opinion against the filibuster is to talk about how the filibuster was used to stymie civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s, as if the GOP can create some sort of negative halo effect (would that be the devil horn effect?) around the use of the filibuster against Bush's judicial nominees.

In general, I think the American public is pretty sensible but I wonder if the filibuster rule is too arcane for people to get excited about. Ultimately the filibuster is the last resort against the tyranny of a party with a slim majority acting as if they have the right to do as they please. In almost any other line of work going 219 out of 229 would be cause for celebration.

[John Ballard]

[Hit the wrong "comment" link very early this morning.
Duuuuh...
Here it is again.
Pls delete the other one if you can. Thanks]

I very much agree. Years ago as I witnessed our Southern politicians opposing Civil Rights legislation by the use of a filibuster I felt differently, but in retrospect the process was needed, even then, to demonstrate to a stubborn, socially retrograde minority that their attitudes and point of view was being left behind once and for all.

In the aftermath of a so-called "super-majority" the defeated minority is less able to do mischief in retaliation for having been defeated. Besides, most countries routinely deal with coalitions rather than two major parties.

Emerging nations without a history of representative government self-consciously and deliberately adopt forms that are "consociational," meaning minorities are assured by law that they will not be overrun and destroyed by a tyranny of the majority. This form, in effect, normally requires a lot of accommodation on the part of coalitions as they work around protected minorities. When I first saw the word last year I thought it was a typo, but I learned that the concept is understood and used outside the US. The way we do politics in America is not the end of historical development, as we would like to believe, but just another step along a developmental continuum.

With the US population undergoing yet another influx of immigration, I can see where super-majorities would be a strength, not a weakness.

Agree, too, with Charles Swift that the filibuster rule goes right over the heads of most people. You can be sure, however, that those who sit in Congress understand the implications quite well.

[B Watson]

Fred, great post as this is one of those items that has dropped off the radar in the last few weeks, and one that most Americans don't know enough about. While I am with you on compromise, I am also of the opinion that the Dems need to stand up and actually filibuster, as some of your other comments have suggested. Ted Kennedy needs to go to Washington Frank Capra sytle, get up on the podium and talk until he passes out. Otherwise it's not a filibuster, it's whining.

Placing my tongue firmly in cheek here, wouldn't it be great if we had hearings about the abuse of nuclear options in Major League Baseball? :)

[Ann]

"I believe that anything that forces a broader majority to agree on something is a good thing. Particularly something as important as judicial appointees.

The fact is that the fillibuster has been used for a very long time in the Senate, by both parties."

1. How does giving veto power to a minority (40%) force a broader majority to agree? This doesn't lead to a broader consensus, it allows a minority to block certain steps (which may or may not be a good thing).

2. The filibuster has never before been used to prevent a judicial nominee from receiving a vote.

3. As for 219 out of 229 being good, the Senate is being prevented from voting on 10 judicial nominees. Part of their job is "advise and consent" - they're refusing to do their job in 10 separate cases, which I consider to be a lot.

When you buy goods or services from someone, do you take the stand that, if they do most of what they promised, that's pretty good? If you order and pay for 10 books from Amazon but they only send you 9, do you say, "hey, 90%, that's not bad"? It's one thing for Senators to vote against nominations, it's another for them to prevent others from doing the job that they were elected to do.

Yes, filibusters have happened before, but so have rule changes. To glorify one side and vilify the other in this fight is subjective, at best. Both are acting in ways consistent with Senate rules and traditions. Why is it so horrible to argue that these nominees deserve a vote?