Following up on the earlier item about Orrin Hatch’s support for the “nuclear option,” which would rewrite the Senate’s filibuster rules to prevent Dems from blocking Bush’s more extreme judicial nominees, it appears that there’s a good reason the tactic hasn’t been tried yet: Republicans may not have the votes.
Last week, Congressional Quarterly reported that John McCain has declared that he won’t support the change, in large part because he believes Dems may someday take back the Senate majority and Republicans may want to maintain the same filibuster options they’ve used in the past.
Bob Novak explained recently that McCain probably won’t be the only one to reject the idea.
The “New England Three” of liberal Republican senators from Maine and Rhode Island [Chafee, Snowe, Collins] may vote no. John McCain and Chuck Hagel have misgivings, with Hagel recalling the dark Republican days of the 1970s when only a handful of Republican senators stood up against the Democratic tide.
If these five reject the nuclear option, it can’t pass. There just won’t be enough votes.
It’s also worth noting that conservative opposition is not just limited to GOP moderates and mavericks on the Hill.
National Review, hardly a bastion of moderation, believes the existing filibuster rules should remain in tact, but that Republicans should use them more effectively for political purposes.
It may be wiser to insist on political accountability for filibusters of judicial nominees than to change the rules to prevent them. In the 2002 and 2004 elections, Republicans took Senate seats from the Democrats. The Democrats’ filibusters against Bush’s judge picks were an issue in all of them.
The consequences might be worse for the Democrats in the case of a Supreme Court vacancy. Only small portions of the electorate have paid attention to the political battles over appellate-court nominations. The public will be paying attention during a Supreme Court fight. Many voters will root for Bush’s nominee and many will root against. But it is unlikely that middle-of-the-road voters will have much tolerance for attempts to block a vote.
I happen to think this argument is wrong — no politician in American history has ever lost a race because of a filibuster — but if National Review wants to reject the right-wing scheme, I’ll take it.
Even George Will believes conservative principles demand that the filibuster rules remain in place.
The filibuster is an important defense of minority rights, enabling democratic government to measure and respect not merely numbers but also intensity in public controversies. Filibusters enable intense minorities to slow the governmental juggernaut. Conservatives, who do not think government is sufficiently inhibited, should cherish this blocking mechanism. And someone should puncture Republicans’ current triumphalism by reminding them that someday they will again be in the minority.
To hear Orrin Hatch and Bill Frist tell it, the nuclear option is not only on the table; it’s ready to be implemented at the next available opportunity. But considering the landscape, it sounds like the GOP leadership still has some convincing to do.