Filibuster

[dmaze]

Today's Globe has two items on the op-ed page both dealing with the Senate, judicial nominations, and judges. The editorial rings true to me: the Globe claims that the Democrats have approved most of Bush's nominations, and certainly are being no more unreasonable than Republicans were during the Clinton administration. The opinion column sounds a little whinier to me — complaining that Congress is interfering with "President Bush's constitutional authority to appoint judges who share his philosophy" completely ignores this little concept of "checks and balances", for example — but it does name several of the judicial nominees and gives reasons that the writer thinks they're good picks.

From what I can tell, the filibuster is essentially part of the game. I don't know if Bush's nominees really are that far to the right, but it does seem like minority rights are at stake here, and this has become a Big Enough Issue that, if 50% of the Senate is enough to confirm judges, then the Republican majority will silence debate. It is almost certainly the case that, if there were a Democratic president and Senate then we'd be seeing the same things but with the sides reversed.

(The column, incidentally, is from one James C. Dobson, "founder and chairman of Focus on the Family". When did "family" become the keyword of the far right? Don't liberals get to have spouses and kids too?)

Comments

[visage.livejournal.com]

the Globe claims that the Democrats have approved most of Bush's nominations, and certainly are being no more unreasonable than Republicans were during the Clinton administration.

I read somewhere (I thought it was at volokh, but I'm failing to find it there) that the big difference between this current round of opposition-to-judicial-nominations and previous rounds was thatthe overall approval percentages are in line with the past few presidencies but if you look only at judges above some level (appelate court?) they're getting stomped at a much higher rate.

It could be that this is a function of the judges being nominated for those positions. *shrug*

[nonnihil.livejournal.com]

It's a bit trickier even than that.

Two of the judges were picked not on the basis of anything terribly ideological but as retaliation for the elimination a few years back of the weird old "blue-slip" rule that made filibusters seem like High Tea. The comprimise the democrats initially offered was to allow votes on those two, which seemed a bit beside the point.

At least one of the other proposed appointees -- Brown -- is genuinely extreme (she holds the same sort of bizarre views of the constitution that I do, which I will be the first to say should exclude one from the civilized mainstream). I haven't looked much into the other seven.

As for "silencing debate" -- there's no debate. If the judges are blocked, there is no debate; if they are voted on, there is no debate. Senators cannot be forced to debate, and with party whip-discipline as strict as it is these days there are no votes to be changed by debate. The entire issue of "silencing debate" is a canard from both sides.

Finally, while I cannot speak for genuine liberals, we libertarians no longer have such archaic notions as "families", but rather encode and preserve customs, genomes, and capital through the use of more modern and efficient mechanisms such as alien brain-pods. We abandon such quaint ideas as "family" to the rubbish-bin of dusty conservative thought! Where are the "Focus on the Brain-Pods" groups, eh? Eh?

Filibuster, schmilibuster

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

The whole stupid wrangling over filibusters is of course entirely political. If the Republicans succeed in getting rid of filibusters, they'll just be clamoring to get it back then next time they are in the minority. And, of course, as soon as the Democrat have the majority, they'll take up the fight to get rid of filibusters in their own turn.

And didn't you know that we liberals couldn't possibly have families since we're all too busy having homosexual relations and having abortions. I mean, can you think of any liberals who have familes consisting of one mother, one father, and some assortment of kids? Besides me, of course.

[iabervon.livejournal.com]

When did "family" become the keyword of the far right?

In the 80s, when they traded half the FBI to the mafia for it?