<p>Senate Republicans' Bid to Destroy the Filibuster Option, And Push Through Ultraconservative Federal Judges:
It Seems Likely the "Nuclear Option" Actually Will Be Used
By JOHN W. DEAN [Nixon White House/ Watergate]</p>
<p><a href="http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20050408.html%5B/url%5D">http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20050408.html</a>
"That is particularly unfortunate given that Senate Democrats represent the majority of Americans - as Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. has pointed out. Dionne found, based on July 2004 Census Bureau figures, that the 44 Democratic Senators represent 148,026,027 people, while the 55 Republican Senators represent 144,765,157. (Independent Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords, who votes with the Democrats on such issues, represents 310,697, making the gap even greater.)</p>
<p>The filibuster could hardly be more important than it is at this particular point in history. Congressional Republicans have become a rubber stamp for anything the Bush White House wants. House Democrats have been effectively neutered by the rules of that body, where the majority controls. As a result, Senate Democrats, with their filibuster, are the only check on Bush's bid to impose hard right wing philosophy on the federal judiciary. And Bush is hell-bent on pushing his nominees through: He has resubmitted twenty judicial nominees turned down by the Congress earlier.</p>
<p>Yet ultimately, the issue should not be solely a partisan one. It is an issue of what is in the long-term interest of both parties: Should the minority party (whichever it might be) have a say in federal judicial nominations - including Supreme Court nominations - as it has throughout the history of the Republic? Or should it be utterly shut out?</p>
<p>The issue is also this - and again, it should not be partisan: Should the character of the Senate be changed profoundly and for the sake of a questionable goal. "</p>
<p>"The April 4, 2005 media briefing by the conservative coalition campaigning to kill the filibuster - mentioned above -- was broadcast by C-Span. There, former White House counsel C. Boyden Gray, who is chairman of the Committee for Justice (an organization working to turn the federal judiciary to the hard right), spoke. However, he spoke falsely.</p>
<p>Gray claimed that the action by the Democrats in filibustering judicial nominees is unprecedented. Senator Frist had earlier called the action by the Democrats radical.</p>
<p>The reality is that there is plenty of filibuster precedent - and indeed, Frist himself participated in a Democratic nominee's filibuster.</p>
<p>In fact, the Republicans' tactics have become worse than the usual Washington balderdash, claptrap, hokum, drivel, and humbug. Rather, they are a prime example of the subject addressed by the renowned moral philosopher and emeritus Princeton philosophy professor, Harry G. Frankfurt, in his new book On ******** (which is climbing the New York Times bestseller list). As the professor states, "The
realm of politics [is] replete with instances of ******** so unmitigated that they can serve among the most indisputable and classic paradigms of the concept." That is precisely the case here.</p>
<p>The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service study found that from 1949 to 2002 thirty-five presidential nominations had been filibustered, including seventeen judicial nominations. "
See table 2 for the Clinton years and repub blocks of his noms-
<a href="http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RS20801.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RS20801.pdf</a></p>
<p>"Finally, according to the well-publicized finding by law professor Herman Schwartz, in March 2000, Majority Leader Frist himself participated in the filibuster against Clinton judicial nominee Richard Paez. (In the end, Judge Paez was confirmed for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after a cloture vote.)"</p>
<p>Clinton noms 65 killed by repub-
"Almost two hundred editorial page writers have expressed deep concern over these GOP tactics - both Bush's bid to pack the federal courts with hard-right conservatives, and Senate Republicans' White-House-supported bid to destroy the Senate's quality as a uniquely deliberative institution.</p>
<p>Among the more illuminating of the editorials is one by Stuart Taylor Jr. -- the legal writer for the nonpartisan National Journal. Taylor counsels moderate Republicans to think twice about joining their fire-breathing brethren.</p>
<p>Taylor notes the Democratic filibusters are merely employing tactics similar to those of Republicans used from 1995 to 2000 to kill some sixty-five Clinton judicial nominations. And he points out that these tactics, "together with Bush's insistence on total victory -- have brought the process to the brink of total war. And unless six or more Republicans show more restraint than anyone else has shown, the war will come." Taylor concludes the stakes do not justify the drastic action of destroying the Senate, and transforming it "into a rump stamp" for any president's judicial selections."
"Americans are going to see the havoc Republicans have caused, and perceive to whom the labels of "radical" and "extremist" rightly belong.</p>
<p>Destroying the Filibuster May Seal Frist's Fate</p>
<p>Senator Bill Frist, in particular, should consider giving up the nuclear option. Frist plainly wants to be President of the United States. But if he pulls the trigger on the nuclear option, that will be the end of his chances.</p>
<p>Certainly, using the "nuclear option" will give Frist an IOU with the hard right. It may even gain him the Republican nomination in 2008 or thereafter. But it will also guarantee that when he runs, he will lose. When the rest of the country understands that it was Frist who was responsible for the destruction of the Senate, his chances for the Presidency will be over. "</p>