Republicans Will Nuke Themselves (5/10/05)
by Dean Hartwell
I have heard enough about the so-called “nuclear option” that Republicans threaten to use in the United States Senate. Every time I turn on talk radio or political television, the subject comes up. So, I feel compelled to add my opinion to this discussion.
To begin with, the issue in question, whether members of the Senate may talk for hours to prevent a vote on a subject, is not mentioned in the United States Constitution. Instead, the filibuster, as it is called, is covered by the Senate rules.
The Republicans want to change the rules because the Democrats have successfully prevented votes on ten of President Bush’s appointees for federal judge positions. To stop a filibuster under the current rules (put in place by the 1975 Senate), the Republicans must find sixty votes to apply cloture, which is also not mentioned in the Constitution.
Often, the Republicans fail to get the votes they need for cloture since they have only 55 seats in the United States Senate. The GOP wants to change the 60-vote rule to a simple majority of 51.
As it now stands, they can’t get those ten judge nominations to the floor of the Senate for a vote. However, Ed Schultz of the Ed Schultz Show has pointed out that the Democrats have allowed 215 other judge nominations to go for a vote, a total of over ninety-five percent.
The Democrats view the ten judicial nominees as extreme. They say, for example, that one of them, Janice Rogers Brown, has said that active governments lead to “a debased, debaunched culture.” Of another nominee, Priscilla Richman Owen, Democrats claim that she signed an opinion on abortion that was criticized by attorney general Alberto Gonzales (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6621-2005Apr21.html).
The roles of the two parties appear to be reversed from the days of President Clinton. Back then, the Republicans used the filibuster and other parliamentary tactics to stop several of Clinton’s choices for judge positions. The Democrats complained about it, to no avail.
What happens if the “nuclear option” (dubbed as such by Republican Senator Trent Lott) goes into effect?
The Republicans will have the power to present any bill they want and any candidate for judge they want. There will no longer be a filibuster to stop them. Republicans will get their ten judge candidates to a vote in the Senate, for example, regardless of Democratic opinion of them.
That may sound fair. After all, the Republicans hold the majority of seats in the Senate and should be allowed to pursue their agenda.
But the filibuster has a long history. From the beginning of our nation’s history, Senators have used this tactic to prevent votes from being taken. For more than one hundred years, a filibuster could not be stopped. Then, in 1917, the Senate agreed that ending a filibuster required a two-thirds majority. The 1975 rule change lowered that threshold to three-fifths. A minority party, like the Democrats, has been able to filibuster to prevent judges and legislation it considers extreme from passing the Senate.
The Democrats could lay back and let the Republicans change the Senate rules. To be sure, some judges they don’t like would be confirmed.
But, they could accuse the Republicans of a power grab and use it as an issue in 2006. Or, they could benefit from the rule change to make it easier to stop a filibuster should they ever get the White House back.
The Republican Party has the votes in the Senate to make this nuclear option reality. They would be wise not to use it lest they nuke themselves.