Filibuster Folly

On Thursday, Majority Leader McConnell invoked the 'nuclear option' - also called the Reid Rule - to rewrite senate rules to overcome the filibuster of Judge Neil Gorsuch.  When put to a vote, he won confirmation by 54-45.  The Republicans have a 52-48 majority in the Senate.  This incident is supposedly evidence that Republicans are wrecking the traditions of the Senate.  Hmm.

 

In 1991, the Democrats held a majority of 55 to 45 seats in the Senate.  In that same year, Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court by a vote of 52-48.  By current standards, Thomas was far outside the 'mainstream' of judicial thought.  How did he get confirmed?

For the entire history of the Senate, judicial nominations were not considered to be subject to the filibuster with the possible exception of Abe Fortas who had some ethics issues that sank his elevation from a Supreme Court Justice to Chief Justice.  However, in 2003, the Democrats decided to filibuster judicial nominees.  They used the filibuster to defeat about ten of George W. Bush's judicial nominees.  This was payback for when the Republican-controlled Senate had bottled several times that many Clinton nominees in committee, never even allowing them to come to a floor vote.  But then the Republicans were getting payback for the smear job against Thomas and the 'borking' of Robert Bork.

 

This growing tit for tat exercise first saw some rollback when the Democrats again took control of the Senate and got sick of Republicans using the filibuster against Obama's nominees.  Though the Republicans had flirted with the idea of a nuclear option when they controlled the Senate, the Democrats used it.  The rules were rewritten so that only Supreme Court nominees could be filibustered.  Now the Republicans have completed the process by removing that last case and returning the Advice & Consent function back to where it was prior to 2003.  Oh the humanity!

 

The filibuster should be returned to its pre-1970 status where a senator had to speak for hours on end to hold up legislation.  Why have a cloture vote to end debate when no one is debating?  It is amazing how much use the filibuster has seen in the wake of that rule.