Nuclear Freeze
Friday, April 8, 2005; Page A24

WITH BOTH parties furiously mobilizing their bases, the war over judicial nominations seems headed for an apocalyptic showdown. Republicans, incensed at Democratic obstruction, threaten the "nuclear option": a procedural trick to abolish the filibuster for nominations. Democrats threaten to retaliate by bringing the Senate to a standstill. Were President Bush and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) inclined toward statesmanship, they could tamp down the crisis. They have shown little such inclination, though this week has seen encouraging signs from Mr. Frist.

As a rule we are not fans of tactics, such as the filibuster, that are intended to prevent up-or-down votes on judicial nominees. Decency demands that nominees receive reasonable and prompt consideration; the Senate owes the presidency and the judiciary timely votes as well. But Republicans are wrong to single out the filibuster as an abomination that must be placed out of bounds in all circumstances. It is one of various procedural hurdles senators can use, but historically have used rarely, to slow a nominee's progress. These obstacles can be abused, but they can also encourage consultation between the White House and senators.


The problem in recent years has been how frequently senators of both parties deploy these procedural devices, which include committee rules, anonymous holds and filibusters. The tit-for-tat escalation in the judicial battles has led each side to regard its own abuses as justifiable responses to previous wrongs. The goal for a president who seeks fair treatment of his nominees should not be to obliterate rules the minority can exploit but to reestablish that such rules are to be used only in the most unusual cases.

Such an option has long been open to Mr. Bush and remains so. He could, as Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) recently said, consult with Democrats on nominations. He could accommodate their legitimate concerns about instances in which Republicans mistreated President Bill Clinton's nominees. He could pick nominees who are qualified and to his ideological liking and yet immune to plausible partisan challenge; even in a highly charged atmosphere, many such people exist. If he showed this kind of leadership, his demand for up-or-down votes would carry far more weight.

Republicans also could dramatically raise the political costs of the filibuster without resorting to abolishing it. Senators who demanded extended debate used to have to actually engage in extended debate -- that is, they had to stay on the floor. The modern filibuster is a fake; threatening it is the same as carrying it out. If Democrats had to stop the Senate from conducting business to prevent a vote on a nominee, they might choose their targets more judiciously.

But instead of seeking common ground or forcing Democrats to take responsibility for their filibusters, Republicans are seeking to change a traditional feature of Senate life -- the notion that a minority can, if it's prepared to take the political heat, stop the Senate from voting. What's more, to do so they are seeking to circumvent the normal procedure for changing Senate rules, which requires a two-thirds vote.

The self-righteous liberal defense of a legislative tactic that many liberals once decried carries more than a whiff of convenience and hypocrisy. But it's at least conceivable that some day a Democratic president will name judges and that a Democratic Senate will seek to confirm them rapidly. When that day comes, Republicans will wish that they had refrained from rearranging the Senate so that the majority need make no accommodations and can blithely change any rule that becomes inconvenient.

I'm really annoyed that the Kindergarten tactics of our Senators is going to put a freeze on the entire government. I wrote to my Senators, but Dole and Burr are really fucking far up Bush's ass and are very unlikely to listen to me.

Pretend to be a Republican who is interested in seeing good conservative judges appointed, and you think the best way to do it is to work with the Dems. It's sneaky, yet true.

I've thought about that. But I don't want to be unethical and then have to go on a rant about how we can't stand for DeLay's ethics violations. Plus, I need to maintain my ethics as I work my way up from my town's library board to Town Council to Mayor to state rep to state senator to Governor to Representative to Senator and then President.

Mwahh Ha Ha!

Republicans: We're Losing on Filibuster

That according to info obtained by the DC-based The Hill:

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), a leading advocate of the “nuclear option” to end the Democrats’ filibuster of judicial nominees, is privately arguing for a delay in the face of adverse internal party polls.
Details of the polling numbers remain under wraps, but Santorum and other Senate sources concede that, while a majority of Americans oppose the filibuster, the figures show that most also accept the Democratic message that Republicans are trying to destroy the tradition of debate in the Senate.

The Republicans are keeping the “nuclear” poll numbers secret, whereas they have often in the past been keen to release internal survey results that favor the party ... But GOP aides said Santorum has made known to the leadership reasons for why Republicans should not move forward on the nuclear or constitutional option.

“He was concerned that too many things are competing in the same area and you couldn’t get a clean shot at it,” a GOP aide said. The aide cited the “fallout” from congressional Republicans’ intervening in a Florida court’s decision to remove Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube and the subsequent controversy caused by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R-Texas) statement that “the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior.”

Frist Draws Criticism From Some Church Leaders
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Published: April 22, 2005


WASHINGTON, April 21 - As the Senate battle over judicial confirmations became increasingly entwined with religious themes, officials of several major Protestant denominations on Thursday accused the Senate Republican leader, Bill Frist, of violating the principles of his own Presbyterian church and urged him to drop out of a Sunday telecast that depicts Democrats as "against people of faith."

Dr. Frist's participation has rekindled a debate over the role of religion in public life that may be complicating his efforts to overcome the Democrats' use of the filibuster, a parliamentary tactic used by Congressional minorities, to block President Bush's judicial nominees.

Dr. Frist has threatened to change the Senate rules to eliminate judicial filibusters, and in response Democrats have threatened a virtual shutdown of the Senate. A confrontation had been expected as early as next week, but it now appears that the showdown may be delayed.

Religious groups, including the National Council of Churches and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, plan to conduct a conference call with journalists on Friday to criticize Senator Frist's participation in the telecast. The program is sponsored by Christian conservative organizations that want to build support for Dr. Frist's filibuster proposal.

Among those scheduled to speak in the conference call is the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, a top official of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., in which Dr. Frist is an active member.

"One of the hallmarks of our denomination is that we are an ecumenical church," Mr. Kirkpatrick said in an interview on Thursday. He also said, "Elected officials should not be portraying public policies as being for or against people of faith."

A spokesman for Dr. Frist said his remarks, which are not yet available, would be consistent with previous statements about fair treatment for judicial nominees. "I would hope that he would read Dr. Frist's remarks," the spokesman, Bob Stevenson, said of Mr. Kirkpatrick.

Mr. Stevenson added that the timing of the confrontation on filibusters was not related to the criticisms that have been raised about the telecast, saying Dr. Frist still planned to propose a compromise to the Democrats.

Still, the Senate moved closer to a showdown on Thursday, when the Senate Judiciary Committee, voting along party lines, approved two nominees, Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla R. Owen, who were blocked by a filibuster in the last Congress and are expected to be blocked again. Republican strategists consider the nominees - two women, one of whom is black - favorable choices for a filibuster fight.

There were signs, though, that Dr. Frist was planning to postpone the confrontation for at least another two weeks, when the Senate returns from a spring recess.

Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, said Dr. Frist had told him he would like to take up a transportation measure next week, an indication that he did not expect a filibuster fight before the Congressional recess. Polls, meanwhile, suggest a lack of public support for ending the filibuster. A recent survey conducted for NBC News and The Wall Street Journal found that 50 percent of those polled believed that the Senate should retain the filibusters for judicial nominations, while 40 percent were against and 10 percent undecided.

The theme of the telecast, which is called Justice Sunday and will be broadcast to churches and Christian radio and television networks, is "The Filibuster Against People of Faith." Its sponsors argue that by blocking judicial nominees who oppose abortion rights on religious and moral grounds, Democrats are effectively discriminating against those nominees.

Dr. Frist has agreed to provide a four-minute videotaped statement for the event. Democrats are calling his participation evidence of Republican extremism.

"We're going to allow the majority leader to invoke faith to rewrite Senate rules, to put substandard, extremist judges on the bench?" Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat and former presidential nominee, said Thursday on the Senate floor. Mr. Kerry added, "It's not up to us to tell any one of our colleagues what to believe as a matter of faith."

Good article, looks like there are some bright spots after all. Even if they were to get these nominations confirmed, I don't think it's worth doing away with a minority tactic that will no doubt benefit them in the future when they aren't the majority party. I'm hoping that will happen someday anyway.