The "nuclear" option, as you describe it, sounds less nuclear and more like common sense to me.
Good post BB.
Can you give us some links? I managed to miss it, and this is fascinating stuff.
Thanks.
I think the Democrats have promised to delay any and all legislation if this option is used. It would be a political war in the Senate and nothing would get done. Not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion.
I wonder if the Democrats would receive the same criticism as the Rupublicans did for "shutting down the government" if this happens? No need to reply, we all know the answer to that already.
Let us hope they actually do this!
Theory or not, the question is, will President Bush pull out the political "football" and push the button?
Thank you sir for that erudite explanation. It bears repeating that if the Pubbies cannot muster the needed cajones (AND VOTES) to get this done, they ain't worth shootin'!!!
Also, the Filibuster is not applicable in all cases today. The Filibuster cannot be used to stop budget resolutions.
I also wonder if the President will adopt Roosevelt's thinking when the latter appointed Senator Black, and nominate a very strong agent for change that the Senate would just have to accept. For example, if the President were to nominate Janice Rogers Brown for CJ, I can't see DiFi and BaBo filibustering a very popular black woman from California.
As an aside, my daughter is taking a college-level government class and has her final today, so we talked SCOTUS appointments. She was four when Clarence Thomas was nominated, so she has no memory of the vicious battle of those days. I told her that if she thought this past election was brutal, just wait for the SCOTUS hearings -- especially if a conservative nominee is set to replace a liberal Justice or a confused mediocrity like Sandra Dee "European Law" O'Connor.
Where exactly, in the constitution, does it say explicitly that a strict majority vote is all that is needed to approve a presidential nominee? I know it says 2/3 on treaties. Are we to simply infer from that unrelated passage that everything else is just a majority vote? Seems a bit of a leap to me.
Also, when have the Dems "filibustered" any judicial nominee from this administration? I thought a filibuster required holding the floor. In this ongoing debacle, I was under the impression that the Dims were getting away with this because the GOP refuses to actually make them endure a proper filibuster, with cots in the cloakroom and so on.
The ruling would be appealed to the Senate which stops action until they vote on it. In all likelyhood the Senate would not vote that Rule 23 applies because the premise behind the point of order is flawed in the first place. Rule 23 doesn't change the votes necessary to approve a judicial nominee, or any other nominee, or any other piece of legislation. Approval still only takes a majority.
Nuclear option good---in both politics AND power generation.
You referred to the portion of the Constitution which empowers each Congress with the authority to develop its own rules of procedure. Both the House and Senate reform every two years. Each new Congress is entitled to develop its own rules of procedure, notwithstanding any existing rule. If the new Congress could be held to account for a previous Congress rule, that would impute an additional element of power on the past Congress.
We know however, that each Congress has equally as much authority as any which preceeded it. What if a previous Congress had propagated a rule requiring that only members shorter than 5 feet could serve as a committee chair? The newer Congress would be wholly within its right to eliminate or modify that rule as it saw fit. The same holds with the filibuster rule. The Senate could disallow the use of the filibuster on judicial appointments when it determines its new rules. Any requirement that impels a super-majority to amend the rules can be ignored, as each Congress is entitled to decide for itself, its own rules of procedure.
Excellent and timely!
... Waiting for the people who argue that the Senate should keep this unconstitutional practice, for the time Republicans want to act in an unconstitutional fashion.
I didn't find this to be "a heavy dose of constitutional law" at all but a very clear explanation of the situation. Thank you.
Thanks for your post and efforts. The ol' Constitution-to-the-head approach will work if we keep it cocked, locked and loaded at the Leftists. Prosecution for treason is another drum we must pound loudly and enforce! -- lest treason cease to be a capital crime by default!