The filibuster is a dinosaur, anyhow. For that matter, the Senate is, to an extent. We’d be better off giving the House (the “people’s body”) the Senate’s unique powers (like confirming judges and cabinet officers) and making the Senate a sort of House of Lords. It’s not a perfect world, so that won’t happen.
Harry Reid is a truly despicable person. He’s power hungry, and he wants Obama’s court appointees in place before the Dems lose the majority in the Senate. This is truly, truly, the most heinous act he’s pulled to date. Me thinks impeachment hearings ought to commence to oust him out of office.
How about this: Suppose the Republicans on the appropriate committees challenge every nominee with tough questions; expose their radical leanings or background; expose why a particular nominee is not qualified, etc., etc. Do it in the same way that the RATs did it to John Tower and Judge Bork. Get nasty. Might this not push some Democrat senators into not voting for a particular nominee? I’m just looking for ways that this could be turned on the Democrats.
Current Republican Senators who were in favor Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s proposal to exercise the “nuclear option” in 2005 under the theory that every George W. Bush judicial nominee deserved a simple up or down vote:
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Richard Shelby (R-AL)
Jim Inholf (R-OK)
Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Mike Enzi (R-WY)
Mike Crapo (R-ID)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Richard Burr (R-NC)
Tom Coburn (R-OK)
John Thune (R-SD)
Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
David Vitter (R-LA)
Current Republican Senators who were against changing the filibuster rules in both 2005 and in 2013 (members of the Gang of 14):
John McCain (R-AZ)
Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Susan Collins (R-ME)
Obama’s “Enabling Act.”
The judges who rule in favor of litigants who (for religious reasons) will not purchase Obamacare will be eliminated and replaced with those who will rule that Obamacare is more important than The Almighty.
Nothing is isolated, it all works together.
It will come back to bite them.