About time the pubies got some backbone. What's the sense of having a majority if you don't use it?

JD
I'm with you, but..

There is a slight problem here. Republicans and/or conservatives may find themselves in the minority in the future, and I would like to think filibustering Judicial appointments would still be an option.

The Democrats could argue that the resistance they are offering now, is due to the absurdly close election in 2000. Where Gore actually received a majority of the votes and thus they are justified in prohibiting him from making even slightly "out of the mainstream " appointments.

I think they may have a good argument, and I would hope that Republicans would do the same thing if they got a majority of the votes and still lost the electoral college vote.

Regardless, I would want to retain the right to filibuster Liberal judicial appointments in at least exceptional situations.

h:

If they're in the minority why should they be able to stop simple appointments by the executive?

>...if Republicans stripped senators of the
>power to filibuster judges, it would lead to a
>freeze in bipartisan relations that they
>compare to a nuclear winter.

So what would be so terrible about that? They've been playing "what's yours is mine and what's mine is MINE!" as far back as I can remember. Better to acknowledgee the truth and label them as The Enemy.

Q: What's the difference between Democrats and Communists?
A: There's a difference?

>They say that Democrats would bring the chamber
>to a standstill in retaliation, but Republican
>proponents note that Democrats have, for the
>most part, done so already.

So what have we got to lose? Their "bipartisan friendship" aka the knife in the back unless we agreed 1000% with them and kissed their asses while they still called us Nazis?

If we Reps get a decisive majority in both House and Senate this fall, I am all for showing the Dems as much Concern and Compassion (TM) as they showed us when they were in power, i.e. None Whatsoever. No quarter, no mercy.

"Show them no mercy! For you will receive none!" -- Aragorn at Helm's Deep

The Constitution says each house shall determine the Rules of its Proceedings. But it also says 'advise & consent'. Isn't consent 51%, not 60%? The Framers had supermajorities for treaties, not appointments.

OJ

You're ultimately are correct, however there is always the exception like the Abe Fortas nomination (he regularly consulted with Lyndon Johnson about court decisions or at least that was the suspicion and there were charges of corruption).

I grant you that the Democrats are willing to filibuster over a larger range of nominations, and they are pushing the envelope about as far as you can go. But conservatives may unfortunately find themselves with their backs to the wall so to speak and I'd like to think they could filibuster.

h-man -- Fortas wasn't filibustered in the sense you mean. A majority was against him. It was his supporters who voted against cloture.

If conservatives ever found themselves with their back to the walls and relying on the filibuster, the Dems would ask for a rule interpretation and find by majority vote that the filibuster was against the rules. They did this sort of thing routinely in the sixties and seventies. You're leaning on a weak reed.

Given the GOP's parliamentary debacle on gay marriage, I'm not optimistic. With RINOs like Chafee and Lincoln and mavericks like McCain, trying to keep all 51 GOP votes in line is like herding cats. It only takes one (or two?) to defect "on principle" against the rules change.

Hope you're wrong Gideon,but you make a valid point.

51% should become the rule, if nothing else does. I'm with OJ, Ken and noel on this one. We're in a nuclear winter now.

If they think that shutting down the government will work for them, just remember how Bill Clinton called the Republican bluff on the budget in '95 and cleaned up in the '96 election.

The problem with the "someday the GOP will want to filibuster" is that if the Dems are in a position to stop it they will.. they tossed fair play out the window a long time ago. Hell, the philibusters themselves are a breaking of a longstanding gentleman's agreement. Turning the other cheek will only result in bruises on both sides of the GOP face.

Additionally, if the GOP keeps the majority this time around, they won't be in jeopardy of losing it for a long, long time.

Finally, if they do get the filibuster rule changed, they can then make enough appointments that the whole situation could me moot. We could finally clean up the damage FDR and the liberals did to the legal system.