{"id":3785,"date":"2005-03-21T12:31:49","date_gmt":"2005-03-21T17:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3785.html"},"modified":"2005-03-21T12:31:49","modified_gmt":"2005-03-21T17:31:49","slug":"public-still-sides-with-dems-on-nuclear-option","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/public-still-sides-with-dems-on-nuclear-option\/","title":{"rendered":"Public still sides with Dems on ‘nuclear option’"},"content":{"rendered":"

To hear Senate Republicans tell it, their gains in the 2004 cycle were a message to Dems: don’t stand in the way of the GOP agenda. This is a particularly common line of attack when it comes to judicial filibusters, where Republicans constantly warn Dems of a public backlash against “obstructionism.”<\/p>\n

But for all their bluster, available evidence suggests the public is with the Dems<\/a>, not the Republicans.<\/p>\n

The Republicans, in control of both legislative and executive branches, may push to change Senate rules to make it impossible to filibuster judicial nominees, the so-called “the nuclear option” because Democrats have threatened to respond by using procedural rules to shut the Senate down…. Neutering the filibuster would be unpopular with Americans, nearly six in ten (57 percent) of whom would disapprove. Even one-third (33 percent) of Republicans say they would object to such a move.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Republicans will be quick to point out that the same poll showed disapproval among poll respondents for Dems plans to bring the Senate to a halt in retaliation for the Republicans going “nuclear.” That’s true — the Newsweek poll showed 46% of Americans disapproving of Dems stopping Senate business, while 40% support the move.<\/p>\n

But these results are telling — and encouraging for Dems. Notice the difference here: the public doesn’t want the GOP changing the rules by a wide margin (57%-32%), but opposition to Dem retaliation is far more modest (46%-40%). That, obviously, is a 25-point margin against a six-point margin. People are far more uncomfortable with the Republicans stacking the deck than they are Dems bringing the Senate to a halt in response.<\/p>\n

This is also consistent with other recent data on the issue. In late January, an NBC\/Wall Street Journal poll<\/a> showed a strong plurality, 48%, saying the Senate “should maintain” the filibuster rules already in place, whereas only 39% want the rule changed to benefit Bush’s judicial nominees. Hardly a stinging indictment of Dems’ obstructionist tactics. What’s more, it’s interesting public support for the “nuclear option” seems to have gone down, not up, as Republican rhetoric on the issue has gotten more aggressive.<\/p>\n

There’s been considerable debate over the political implications of the “nuclear option” and the related Dem response, and it’s nearly impossible to say how the public would react until the events actually took place. Having said that, it appears Dems go into the showdown with the public’s support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To hear Senate Republicans tell it, their gains in the 2004 cycle were a message to Dems: don’t stand in the way of the GOP agenda. This is a particularly common line of attack when it comes to judicial filibusters, where Republicans constantly warn Dems of a public backlash against “obstructionism.” But for all their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}