Judicial Filibuster

What comes around goes around. The Democrats are poised to enact the Nuclear Option on judicial appointments.

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/...rats-poised-to-deploy-the-nuclear-option?lite

*** Senate Democrats poised to deploy “nuke option”: It’s true in physics and in politics: For every action, there’s an opposite and equal reaction. And so after Senate Republican filibustered President Obama’s nominees to sit on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals -- not on concerns about ideology or qualifications, but over the president’s ability to appoint ANYONE to these vacancies -- Senate Democrats are poised to change the rules via the so-called “nuclear option.” And while this may seem like a threat you’ve heard before, this time it seems as if there isn’t any deal that will derail this likely action. Senate Democratic aides confirm to First Read that they’re expected to vote today to change the rules to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for all executive appointments, except to the U.S. Supreme Court. Such a move requires just a 51-vote majority, so Democrats could lose four of their colleagues and still win the vote. Senate Republicans counter that if Democrats go through with this change, they’ll reciprocate the next time they control the White House and the Senate -- including for Supreme Court picks. “If [Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid] changes the rules for some judicial nominees, he is effectively changing them for all judicial nominees, including the Supreme Court,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said yesterday, per the Washington Post. But Harry Reid believes he does have 51 votes, especially since he convinced Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to climb on board this nuke-option train. She had been an influential holdout in the past.

 

Should be mentioned it's not quite the same issue here - Republicans haven't raised any specific objections to the appointees and are filibustering on the general principle that Obama's getting to appoint "too many" judges to the DC Circuit (which is ironic, considering overall he's way, way behind the pace set by GWB due in no small part to obstructionism (and his own slowness))

 

True it is a slightly different issue that the nuclear option is being considered but it still a change regarding the use of the filibuster on judicial appointments and something the Senate hasn't done before. Further the nuclear option as outlined by Reid doesn't just prevent filibusters in the case of if the minority party arguing about how many judicial appointees a President can make to a particular circuit but all judicial appointees below Supreme Court level.

This is what some guy named "Sishir Chang" wrote back in this thread in 2005

It won't take much for the Republicans to take control of the Senate and given that the Democrats have to defend more seats next year and if things aren't fixed with the ACA the Democrat brand could be in trouble it is very conceivable that the Republicans control the Senate in 2015 and a Republican President is in the Whitehouse in 2017. I can't imagine that the Democrats would be so OK with having their ability to filibuster judicial nominees restricted. They certainly weren't in 2005.

 

Do it. It's not like the modern Republican party will shrink from doing it at their next opportunity. May as well get some of your judges in while you have the chance. If you let Republicans do it first, you get to scold them in the papers a bit, but I think we've seen that doesn't much elections much anyway. Go for the raw naked power instead.

 

Well whaddayaknow, another example of the democrats unable to work across the aisle, so they have to break the rules that have long stood.

 

Agreed. I don't like it at all, but I don't like how the Repubs have abused the filibuster even less. It's one thing to challenge the merits of an individual nominee but it is another to flat out say you will not allow any nominee.

 

Except in 2005 the Republicans didn't do it when they were in charge of the Senate.

 

It's 2013.

 

When the GOP is arguing that Obama shouldn't be able to appoint judges because they get paid too much and aren't needed, there's nothing to negotiate there. The GOP created a Constitutional crisis by not doing their job, so the Democrats resolved it the only way possible. The country will be worse off than it was 10 years ago for it, but better off than it is today and when you have a party that's not interested in doing their basic job.

 

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewi...cans-forced-reid-s-hand-on-the-nuclear-option




Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told TPM that Republicans forced Harry Reid to "go nuclear" after his Democratic majority took the historic step Thursday and ended the filibuster for executive nominees and non-Supreme Court judicial nominees.

"For whatever reason, the Republicans decided to go nuclear first, with this utterly unnecessary violation of their own agreement and open decision to block the president from filling vacancies for his entire term, no matter how well qualified the nominees," Ornstein told TPM in an email. "It was a set of actions begging for a return nuclear response."

He also speculated that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) secretly wanted Democrats to go nuclear so he could use the same tactic to end the filibuster entirely if and when Republicans takes the majority.

"McConnell's threat, it seems to me, makes clear the strategy: let Dems take the first step, and we will then bear no blame when we entirely blow up the Senate's rules after we take all the reins of power," he said. "That other Republicans like Corker, McCain, Alexander, Murkowski and so on, went along, shows how much the radicals and anti-institutionalists now dominate the Republican Party. Which is sad indeed."

 

^That seems right to me in terms of a Repub strategy. If it was principled, they would not have come out and loudly announced their no nominees at all position. In previous Senates, where it actually functioned, there would have been deal-making over individual nominees. As noted, the absolutist position of the Repubs left Dems no choice. They either do this or no judges ever get appointed or Repubs obstruct now only to go nuclear when they are in the majority and appoint all the built up vacancies with Federalist Society types. This was the least bad option.

 

Not a fan of filibusters. So while I am against democrats generally, I am for this just wish it was more broad.

 

Your posts are usually politically savvy so I'm surprised by the above. The GOP in 2005 was a very, very different beast. Congress in general, the government, and people's attitudes have changed considerably.

The ongoing financial crisis since 2008 and Obama's election that year were a milestone in modern American politics not for the positive hope/change theme, but for the toxicity and vociferous opposition that these events created.

I go to Washington every year, and the mood there is very different nowadays. Citizens United and the Tea Party's tactics hugely impacted our national government. The times now call for these measures so I agree with JuanValdez.

 

Breaking news: Minorities are always against repression. Until they are the majority.

Go tell everyone in Washington who didn't know this already.

 

The Republican party hasn't won a simple majority in a presidential election in 25 years, and the trend line in the near future isn't looking much different. You don't need the filibuster when you're highly likely to be the one making the nominations.

 

What was the compromise made back in 05? My googlefu is failing me.