Last July, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist first expressed support for the long-rumored “nuclear option” — unilateral change to the chamber’s filibuster rules that would prohibit Dems from blocking the most extreme of Bush’s judicial nominees. He apprently hasn’t forgotten about it.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Thursday urged Democrats to stop blocking President Bush’s federal court nominees and hinted that he may try to change Senate rules to thwart their delaying tactics.
“One way or another, the filibuster of judicial nominees must end,” Frist, R-Tenn., said in a speech to the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.
This comes the same week as Trent Lott’s insistence that the “nuclear option” should be pursued.
“I do think we need to clearly establish the precedent that it only takes 51 votes to confirm a federal judge,” Lott told The Hill. “This is going to test the mettle and what we as Republicans are in the Senate.”
This radical scheme has been floating around for a while now, with a handful of GOP lawmakers hesitant about adopting a plan that Dems have warned would constitute a declaration of all-out war and a freeze in partisan relations that some compare to a nuclear winter (thus the name). Indeed, Dems continue to tell the GOP that they’re not kidding.
Democrats have also threatened to tie up the Senate in knots if they lose their right to filibuster in that manner.
“To implement it would make the last Congress look like a bipartisan tea party,” Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who is on the Judiciary Committee, said. “For the sake of country and some degree of comity, I would hope and pray that the majority leader would not take away the Senate’s time-honored, 200-year-old tradition.”
It may come anyway.
As recently as this year, Republican leaders did not have enough support within their own caucus to support a unilateral rules change issued from the chair with a simple majority, which is how the “nuclear option” would be implemented. But, it’s worth noting that the Senate is about the be infused with some new Republicans, some of whom are on the far-right edge of the Senate spectrum. Senators-elect Coburn, DeMint, and Burr come to mind.
Not only will the new senators back the radical rule-change, they’ll likely be pushing for it within the caucus. There aren’t many judicial vacancies left, so hopefully, this showdown won’t occur. But the Dems still have every reason to block the worst of Bush’s would-be judges while “nuclear option” seems to be increasingly appealing to the GOP. It will probably get ugly.
Post Script: If Republicans successfully make a unilateral change to the chamber’s procedural rules, it will, as Kevin Drum noted this week, be the latest in a long line of abuses in this area.
When Democrats were in power and Republicans were in the minority, senatorial courtesy prevailed in judicial nominations. For decades, the rule was this: if both senators from a judge’s home state objected to (or “blue slipped”) a nominee, he was out. But when Republicans took control of the Senate during the Clinton presidency, these rules no longer looked so good to them:
* In 1998, for no special reason, Orrin Hatch decided that only one senator needed to object to a nomination. This made it easier for Republicans to obstruct Bill Clinton’s nominees.
* In 2001, when one of their own became president, Hatch suddenly reversed course and decided that it should take two objections after all. That made it harder for Democrats to obstruct George Bush’s nominees.
* In early 2003, Hatch went even further: senatorial objections were merely advisory, he said. Even if both senators objected to a nomination, it would still go to the floor for a vote.
* A few weeks later, yet another barrier was torn down: Hatch did away with a longtime rule that said at least one member of the minority had to agree in order to end discussion about a nomination and move it out of committee.
Congressional Republicans have taken the “rules are meant to be broken” approach to new depths. They don’t even try and create unpersuasive justifications for their behavior; they just rig the system to their liking. There’s no public outrage because people pay no attention to Senate procedure, so GOP abuse goes unnoted and unchecked. As Drum put it, “There’s no principle involved in this, just a raw exercise of power.”
And it’s going to get worse.