Read this Union Leader editorial. Republican Presidential aspirants need heed this.
Then read Lee Harris, (really, read it, even though it is long) who concludes that ending the judicial filibuster may be unwise. He does so logically, while providing wonderful historical context.
He shows that the “comity” of the Senate is ephemeral and the rules are subject to change when grossly abused.
Harris would have the Republican threat to change Senate rules be a successful bluff. I hope he is correct (even if it will cost me a few wagered beers.)
Harris says GOP execution of the “nuclear option” will be judged on whether it is successful in helping to preserve comity in the United States as a whole.
Three points. 1- He’s right. 2-Reread the Union Leader article (no one can doubt this paragraph is accurate):
But if the Republicans don’t wise up and have the guts to stop the Democrats’ current misuse of the filibuster, they will find that a President Hillary Clinton and her pals will have no such problem in suddenly “discovering” that the Founding Fathers never intended judges or other Presidential appointments to be blocked in this manner.
3- Go watch Fahrenheit-911. Visit Moveon.org. Visit democraticunderground.com regularly for a few weeks.
Comity, Hell! So much for sanity. The Senate, whose minority leader literally pays homage to such tripe, and those citizens who actually believe Michael Moore has something honest to tell us, are not, repeat not, interested in “comity”.
Harris does leave his own critical question unanswered; “Yet what remedies are there in our current bag of tricks by which the judicial system can be forced to represent the will of the people whose lives they control so intimately and so thoroughly?”
The implications of this question might fill several volumes, but let us remember statist and/or European law as cautionary judicial examples.
Harris discusses the dangers to elected political minorities that might follow from abolishing the filibuster for judicial nominees.
In principle, I agree. In context, I’m very skeptical. In practice, because there is not one historical example of a filibuster of Presidential judicial nominees, I am more than completely unconvinced.
If any sane person, much less Republican Senators, had considered the principle of judicial filibuster to be protected by the “comity” principle of the Senate, Ruth Bader Ginsburg would never have become a Supreme Court Justice.
The Democrats are arguing that filibuster is not just compatible with, but is necessary to, comity because.. well, otherwise MoveOn.org donors won’t be happy.
In contrast to Harris’ conclusion, and based on his own evidence, I contend that ending “filibusters” on judicial nominations puts us more closely in line with both history and comity.
Therefore, please consider signing the Federalist Patriot petition to end filibuster of judicial nominnes. (It could win me a couple of beers.)