It depends on what the meaning of ‘history’ is

July 6, 2005

There’s rhetoric…

Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief political architect, said precedents from the most recent Supreme Court vacancies suggest that opposition-party senators have a responsibility to back a president’s choice if they believe a nominee is qualified, even if they disagree with the person’s views. […]

“Throughout the history of the republic, Supreme Court nominations receive an up-or-down vote,” Rove said.

…and there’s reality.

The Senate was launched on a full-blown filibuster, with one South Carolina senator consuming time by reading “long passages of James F. Byrnes’s memoirs in a thick Southern accent,” according to a newspaper account. […]

Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) told his panel this month that the judicial battles have escalated, “with the filibuster being employed for the first time in the history of the Republic.” … Such claims, however, are at odds with the record of the successful 1968 GOP-led filibuster against President Lyndon B. Johnson’s nomination of Abe Fortas to be chief justice of the United States. “Fortas Debate Opens with a Filibuster,” a Page One Washington Post story declared on Sept. 26, 1968. It said, “A full-dress Republican-led filibuster broke out in the Senate yesterday against a motion to call up the nomination of Justice Abe Fortas for Chief Justice.” […]

Some current Republican leaders — citing comments by then-Sen. Robert P. Griffin (R-Mich.), who led the Fortas opposition — say the 1968 debate was not a true filibuster. But there is little in the record to support that assertion. The Washington Post reported on Oct. 2, 1968: “In a precedent-shattering rebuff to the Administration, the Senate yesterday refused to cut off the filibuster against consideration of Abe Fortas to be Chief Justice.” The Congressional Quarterly Almanac reported in 1968: “The effort to block the confirmation by means of a filibuster was without precedent in the history of the Senate.” The Senate Web site’s account of the episode is headlined “Filibuster Derails Supreme Court Appointment.”

In all sincerity, I hope a filibuster won’t be necessary when Bush announces his Supreme Court nominee. But if a filibuster is used, it won’t be a first for the “history of the republic,” only the first since 1968.

Now if only our Demo leaders and talking heads will have this info AND a copy of the WaPo article in hand when they kit the airwaves/cable. I won’t count on it, however.

  • Are you forgetting the “filibuster to get more information” of Richard Paez in 1999 by Frist and the Rethugs? Doesn’t that count? And notwithstanding the Senate website, Congressional Journal, and other sources, filibusters — and their legislative equivalents (blue slips, refusal to call committee hearings, etc.) — have been used DOZENS of times in our history.

    This “first time ever” crap is just that, crap. The sooner this gets and stays debunked, the better. Go see People for the American Way (I think that is Ralph Neas’ site) for much more detail.

  • Are you forgetting the “filibuster to get more information” of Richard Paez in 1999 by Frist and the Rethugs?

    That’s an important point, but I limited this to Supreme Court nominations because that was the basis for Rove’s quote. If readers want a refresher on the Paez filibuster, my post from March is here.

  • Are you reading this post right now? Do you want average Americans to know and understand that the filibuster has been used before, used by Republicans, and that BushCo is setting a new precedent in nominating divisive and under qualified zealots to the bench?

    Have you done anything productive for America today?

    One great way to do something is to send a letter to the editor of your local paper. Find them on the internet; submission is usually quick and easy. Most papers want under 200 words, for the subject line of your email to include the letter’s subject, and for you to include your address and phone number in the email (so they can verify authorship).

    Here’s a text to get you started:

    Re: Karl Rove is lying

    I support the idea of an up or down vote on judicial nominees, but I am appalled by Bush’s advisor, Karl Rove, who makes misleading statements to try and make honest debate seem traitorous. He now claims that “Throughout the history of the republic, Supreme Court nominations receive an up-or-down vote.” Yet this (intentionally) ignores the 1968 GOP-led filibuster against President Lyndon B. Johnson’s nomination of Abe Fortas to be chief justice of the United States.

    The Constitution says the president makes judicial appointments with the “advice and consent� of the Senate. This is what “checks and balances� is all about. Yet Mr. Rove, who may very well have committed treason by leaking the name of an undercover CIA operative as political payback, wants the Senate to blindly endorse any nominee.

    This country deserves more than a rubber-stamp Senate. Mr. Bush calls this “opposition politics.� Yet, unlike past presidents, Mr. Bush has yet to so much as consult with a single Democratic Senator—not quite the “uniter� he promised to be. When the office of the president is reduced to petty political shenanigans, intelligence-fixing and lies, opposition is the only responsible course.

  • Rove’s statement (“Throughout the history of the republic, Supreme Court nominations receive an up-or-down vote”) is also proven wrong by nominations that were neither voted on or filibustered.

    For example, 3 of President Tyler’s nominations to the Supreme Court were never voted on. In 1844, 2 nominations were tabled for nearly a year. Tyler withdraw those nominations in 1845 and nominated two others. The Senate confirmed one but adjourned without voting on the other.

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