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Volume CXXXIII, Number 9 |
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168 to four, what's the big deal?
JAMES BAUMBERGER
ORIENT STAFF
Since George Bush took office, 168 of his nominees for the federal judiciary have been confirmed. Only four of his nominees-the most conservative of them-have been blocked by the Democrats on the floor of the Senate.
The Republicans are crying foul, complaining that the Democrats are unfairly halting the nominations. But if President Bush and the Republicans want to push for radically conservative judges, they cannot expect the Democrats to willingly acquiesce when they have the ability to do something to stop it.
Despite the slim Republican majority in the Senate, the Democrats have been able to block action on these four nominations with the use of the filibuster. This tactic, based on the Senate tradition of unlimited debate, allows the Democrats to delay consideration of an item on the agenda by simply refusing to close debate. A supermajority of 3/5-60 votes-is required to override a filibuster. Currently, the 51 Republicans in the Senate constitute a majority, but not a supermajority.
It is through this method that the Democrats have blocked nominees William Pryor, Charles Pickering, Priscilla Owen, and Miguel Estrada.
Admittedly, blocking a judicial nomination by filibuster is rather rare. Before the infamous four were blocked recently, no federal judge confirmation had ever been successfully stopped on the floor of the Senate with a filibuster.
Nevertheless, the Republican argument in opposition to the filibusters is a bit perplexing. Republicans have accused the Democrats of subverting the democratic process by using the filibuster to obstruct Bush's judicial nominations.
Why?
Well, it's not that they are opposed to blocking nominations in principle. In fact, before Bush was in office, the Republicans killed many of Clinton's nominations before they even got to the floor for a vote. And it's not that they oppose filibusters; when the Republicans were the minority party they used them as well.
The Republicans claim it is the filibustering of judicial candidates specifically that is unacceptable. Interestingly, the Republicans have themselves filibustered the judicial nominees of Democratic presidents in recent years. The only difference was that Republicans weren't successful.
Their argument seems to be that filibusters are acceptable, just so long as they are not successfully used against them. Even more outrageous, the Republicans have suggested that the reason for the Democratic opposition was bigotry.
Blocked nominee William Pryor is Catholic. As a result of the Democrats' opposition to his nomination, the Republicans accused them of being anti-Catholic. Charles Pickering is a Baptist southerner. Not surprisingly, the Democrats were similarly labeled anti-Baptist and anti-Southern. Miguel Estrada is Hispanic. You guessed it: they're anti-Hispanic too!
So why have the Democrats broken with tradition by filibustering nominations on the floor of the Senate?
Keeping in mind that the Democrats chose not to filibuster 98 percent of the judicial confirmation votes that came to the Senate floor, when the Democrats did filibuster it was only because the nominees were so far to the right that their views did not come close to resembling the mainstream.
During the Clinton administration, the vast majority of which took place under Republican control of Congress, the Republicans blocked plenty of judicial nominations on ideological grounds. The only difference was that they used their majority on the Judiciary Committee to block the nominations before they could even get to the floor to be voted on.
If the president wants smooth confirmations in Congress, he'll have to stop selecting such polarizing figures as his judicial nominees. In the meantime, the Democratic filibuster will hopefully help maintain a judiciary that does not to a great degree favor any one political ideology.
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