Posted on 04/26/2005 3:16:44 PM PDT by CHARLITE
I find it hard to say this as a conservative, but the current Republican position on judicial filibusters is not in the long-term best interest of either the party, or our nation. And, unfortunately, our conservative leaders and pundits are demonstrating an almost incomprehensible myopia by advocating a procedural change that would prevent such a practice in the future.
With those sentiments out of the closet, I can foresee e-mail messages flooding my inbox in much the same way as Obi-Wan Kenobi felt a shift in the force when Princess Leia’s home planet of Alderaan was destroyed by the Empire’s new Death Star:
· “Mr. Sheppard, you have betrayed your party with this piece!”
· “You are acting like the loathsome black-sheep member of a respected family showing up to a reunion uninvited!”
· “With conservatives like you, who needs liberals?”
Well faithful readers, nothing can be further from the truth.
Let’s face some cold, hard facts. The filibuster is a marvelous tool for the minority party in our nation. It allows it to prevent the majority from running roughshod over the legislative process without any semblance of restraint.
Of course, in our current situation, we conservatives don’t like this constitutional oddity for WE are the majority, and WE would like to force all of our ideas -- in this case, all of the president’s judicial appointments -- through the system with great ease.
But, we will not always be the majority party. And, amending parliamentary procedures that will prevent this practice in the future to get some judges appointed today is akin to eliminating “offensive holding” in the middle of a football game when you have the ball.
The problem is that at some point, we are NOT going to have the ball, and this change will work against us.
Let’s be clear: There is no clause in the Constitution suggesting that judicial appointment votes can be filibustered. However, there is no specific stipulation preventing it. As a result, you really have to hand it to the Democrats for concocting this strategy.
And, this is certainly a precedent that we Republicans are going to want to exploit to our benefit in the future.
Think about it. At some point likely much sooner than most of us are going to be comfortable with, there WILL be a Democratic president. And, that president might have a majority in the Senate.
Under such circumstance, if this president were to appoint some extremely leftist jurists to higher positions within the judiciary -- maybe some who believed that guns should only be available to members of the military and peace officers, or that abortion should be legal right up to the very moment the umbilicus is severed -- wouldn’t it be nice if we could filibuster an up-or-down vote on such an appointee?
To further illustrate the potential downside of what I believe to be very short-term thinking from the Republican leadership, let me offer an economic analogy. In our country today, two of America’s largest non-government employers, General Motors and Ford, have severely threatened their organizations by maximizing short-term profitability while ignoring any semblance of long-term planning or strategy.
Specifically, the way upper-management in America’s auto industry continued to build high-profit, inefficient gas-guzzlers with no regard for the possibility that the oil environment was going to change has not only endangered their own futures, but has the potential of severely jeopardizing our country’s ongoing economic health.
With that said, I fervently believe the Republican leadership is exhibiting similar audacity and lack of foresight with this filibuster issue.
Yes, it could be highly beneficial to the president’s current agenda -- and, therefore, success -- for these filibusters to cease, and all of his appointees to sail through Congress directly into more important and increasingly influential judicial positions.
Four years from now, or eight, or twelve, however, as a Democratic president is nominating a jurist to the Supreme Court who believes that health insurance coverage is an inalienable right that every American is entitled to, we conservatives are going to be very sorry that we couldn’t filibuster this vote.
As such, if the Republican Party at this stage in history is truly visionary, it should not act like incompetent auto industry executives by making potentially beneficial short-term decisions that endanger its ability to protect the nation
About the Writer: Noel Sheppard is a business owner, economist, and writer residing in Northern California. Noel receives e-mail at slep@danvillebc.com
Is this guy suggesting that if the Pubs exercise restraint now, then the Dems will later? The fact is, we will be out of power sooner or later, that's why we gotta act now. And we won't be buying any points by playing the good guy now.
I don't need to send him hate mail to show how he's wrong. The filibuster has never in the history of the USA been used in the way the Democrats have been using it. It's never been used against judicial nominees. It's never been used as a blanket policy for the minority party against any idea that they don't like. The GOP is under ZERO obligation to allow the 'rats to continue to ABUSE this procedure to undermine the Constitution and change the essential nature of the Senate.
Mr. Sheppard is extremely naive if he thinks the Dems wouldn't change the Senate Rules in a heartbeat if the GOP pulled this filibuster crap on their nominees. We either change the Senate Rules right now or watch the Dems change them when it benefits them.
Some Republicans think that they should support the filibuster so that they'd retain the opportunity to use it to block liberal appointments should they lose the majority in the future.
It's an irrelevent point. The Republicans will never have the opportunity to use a filibuster to stop a Democrat appointee. The Dems are much better at using government largess to bribe elected officials than Democrats - it's very unlikely that they'd not be able to turn a couple of RINOs.
And if they couldn't flip enough RINOs, they'd throw the switch - changing the Senate rules - without a second thought.
Perhaps a more knowledgable Freeper can clarify something for me?
My understanding is that the rule under discussion for possible change is the rule regarding the number of votes required for cloture.
I always thought a filibuster was when a bloviated windbag hogged the floor for days at a time to wear everyone else out.
Am I wrong or is there an attempt to confuse cloture with filibuster?
Article 2, section 2: Clause 2: He [the President] shall have Power, ... by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law...
By not providing Advice or Consent, as is required by the above, the Senators are shirking their duty. Balance that against:
Article 1, section 5, Clause 2: Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings...
In this case, the Rules are PREVENTING proceedings, specifically a proceeding that the Senate is Constitutionally OBLIGATED to perform. Filibustering appointees is flatly unconstitutional.
well said ,...the Hang-Wringers , the Nervous Nellies , the Tough Talkers that get spaghetti legs when the time for action draws near, they should find a comfortable place,out of the way ,...this won't be easy or fun or fast , but it will happen
Whenb circumstances require it, say at some future time when we have a Democrat President with his party in control of the Senate, and the Republicans are obstructing the President's judicial appointments, the filibuster will be dispensed with with less fanfare than a cafeteria lunch.
You'll read about it on page 26 of the Washington Post.
I don't think that he is talking about getting points. He's saying that if we lock ourselves into the "no filibuster" rule on judicial nominees, then there could come a time when a Democrat president nominates a far out lefty to the high bench, and we wouldn't be able to stop it, because we would have eliminated the filibuster tactic "way back there in 2005."
I was wondering if any rules change now would be permanent........."for all time," or if they could be changed back again to allow filibusters at some future date. It's all a game, after all, isn't it?
We have ultra-leftist rat Senators (such as Leahy, jumpin Jim Jeffords, Schumer, the hildabeast, Harkin, Boxer, Dodd, Levin, Kennedy, sKerry, Byrd, et al as in who did I miss) who want to turn this Country into a socialist 'paradise' with Judges who write new laws through fiat.
I say 'nuke em', and work harder in the future to insure our Red (which should be Blue) State plurality in the U S Senate is kept intact.
These are not nice people we are dealing with, as it is a culture war.
The "filibuster" is a long, funny word that describes the parlimentary procedure of "Calling the question".
Roberts Rules of Order have you make a motion, then the motion is seconded. Then discussion begins (without a motion being seconded, tehnically, there is nothing before the group for discussion)...and when people start getting tired of the discussion, or when the discussion begins to go around the same circle for the second time, the chairman can "call the question" to a vote.... If someone determines that there is still additional debate necessary on the issue then they can vote to keep the debate open. Under Roberts Rules, it takes 2/3 majority to close debate on a motion and call the question to a vote.
The Senate softened that requirement to 60 out of 100 votes. This is what they call a "cloture" vote.
The "filibuster" (I believe the etymology of the word is derivative from the French word "flibustier", for "pirate") became a parlimentary maneuver to fundamentally abuse the rules to achieve a goal other than the one intended. It has become not at all about continuing debate. Inbstead it has become about interminably delaying a vote (sort of like "tabling" a motion. It takes a simple majority vote to "table a motion" under Robert's Rules, but it takes a 2/3 majority to get it "off the table" and back up for discussion....).
Frankly, I think the President of the Senate should keep the entire Judiciary Committee calendar hostage to the "ongoing debate" on these judicial appointments.... No other Judiciary Committee business until these nominees are voted...
Let the Judiciary Committee become a backwater where Senators go to drift into obscurity....as none of their issues ever come before the full Senate for action...then you will start to see some people start to budge on this.
One more thing...one of the reasons that filibusters are actually seen to work on legislative issues is that there is some horse trading to be done there...There is no bill so unpaletable that there isn't some spoonful of pork that can't sweeten it up so as to break a filibuster deadlock...
There is no compromise on judicial appointments...you can't add a new federal office building for the town of Resume Speed, East Dakota to a vote on a judicial nominee.
Nope, the Senate originally allowed four Senators (of 26?) to "call the question ( or to call the previous question)
From the Journal of William Maclay, United States Senator from Pennsylvania, 1789-1791 , who was on the committee that wrote the rules of the first Senate: "Rule 7 [8]. In case of a debate becoming tedious, four Senators may call for the question; or the same number may at any time move for the previous question, viz, "Shall the main question now be put?" "
IE: it ended the debate if passed by a simple majority, and whatever was before the Senate would then be voted on.
The first attempt to "filibuster" a presidential nominee was on January 16 1792. There was an attempt to block consideration of the nomination of William Short as minister to the Hague in which the tie vote was broken by VP John Adams:
"The numbers being equal, the previous question was by the Vice-President determined in the affirmative. On the question to advise and consent to the appointment of William Short, of Virginia, now Chargé des Affaires of the United States, at Paris, to be Minister resident for the United States, at the Hague, as nominated in the message of the 22d December; "
Years later (1797) an attempt was made to block President Adams nomination of his son John Quincy to be minister to Prussia which was also ended by "calling the question".
I don't doubt that you're right about it's use in Robert's though. In 1806 the senate dropped this rule because "calling the question" is indeed a dilatory tactic in it's own way.
You are correct. It is not a vote to abolish filibusters but a vote to change the Senate rules in regards to how many votes it takes to have cloture.
You must understand, however, that the Democrats have no qualms about misleading the American people.
Yesterday on NPR, I heard Democrat Senator Schumer from New York defining the filibuster as the Founding Father's original vision for the Senate.
Schumer quoted George Washington's statement that the Framers had created the Senate to "cool" House legislation just as a saucer was used to cool hot tea.
Changing the filibuster rules, bloviated Schumer, would "change the nature of the Senate" as it was originally envisioned by the Founding Fathers.
What Schumer never told his gullible and historically ignorant NPR interviewer was that the Senate created by the Founding Fathers had the Senators appointed by the State Legislatures and not elected directly by the people. The "cooling" effect was that State Legislatures would appoint "gentlemen" from the upper classes who did not have to cater to the average man wielding a ballot.
The "cooling effect" was, in fact, class elitism that was changed when the 17th Amendment provided for the direct election of Senators in 1913.
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