You might remember my piece from this morning in which I mused on the inner workings of Senator Chuck Grassley’s brain to try to suss out the thinking behind the Republicans’ serial obstruction of the president’s nominees to serve on the DC Circuit of Appeals. Well…I feel vindicated. Harry Reid is apparently going to go nuclear tomorrow, and Chuck Grassley isn’t happy.
Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa took to the Senate floor and denounced Democrats, saying that if they changed the rules, Republicans would consider them applicable to all judicial nominees, including those for the Supreme Court. Mr. Reid has said he supports keeping intact the minority party’s ability to filibuster controversial Supreme Court nominees.
“Apparently the other side wants to change the rules while still preserving the ability to block a Republican president’s ability to replace a liberal Supreme Court Justice with an originalist,” Mr. Grassley said.
Does that sound like a man who secretly wants Harry Reid to go nuclear? To me, it sounds like a man who is desperately trying to dissuade Democrats from supporting the nuclear option by promising to confirm “originalists” (read: Scalia-types) to the Supreme Court, in retaliation, with simple-majority votes. It’s not much of a threat, as it tends to buttress the argument of the advocates of the nuclear option. Part of the argument is that the Republicans have become so radicalized and so vested in their strategy to legislate from the bench, that they will never honor the filibuster anyway if it means that they won’t get to put another Scalia on the Supreme Court. If the reason to show restraint now is to encourage the Republicans to show restraint later, well, Chuck is pretty much torpedoing that reason.
No, sadly, Brian Beutler swung and missed on this one. The GOP simply couldn’t help themselves and they overplayed their hand. Even John McCain seems unable to rectify the situation.
The threat that Democrats could significantly limit how the filibuster can be used against nominees has rattled Republicans. Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who has brokered last-minute deals that have averted a change to filibuster rules in the past, visited Mr. Reid in his office on Thursday but failed to strike a compromise.
Thanks for playing, assholes.
The link to “your piece this morning” is bringing up a Daily Kos link.
thx, fixed.
Heh.
He’s delusional with respect to the results of the 2016 election.
David Gregory asking “Is this comparable to Franklin Roosevelt’s attempt to pack the Supreme Court?” in 3, 2, 1 . . .
Often left unsaid about that little tidbit by professional media is the fact that we moved out of an era where child labor laws were “unconstitutional” as a result.
And that Roosevelt did eventually get to “pack the court” anyway – he picked 8 of the 9 replacements after the old dudes retired one by one.
They’re known as the Four Horseman for obvious reasons.
Wonder if the Dems will have a unified caucus to go nuclear, or some defections; and if so, who will defect?
Beutler made the all-too-common mistake of trying to find rational underpinnings in Republican strategies (or what passes for strategy but is essentially reflexive). All they really know, at this point, is how to double down on obstruction.
Yeah its all reaction with them, no grand strategy. No one’s in control of that clown car anymore.
Good for Harry. He must have the votes. ‘Bout time.
And the balls. He is starting to etch himself a prominent place in the history books. He has the makings of a Senate legend.
The piece supports my little theory, the filibuster is a more useful tool for the GOP, as they are willing to abuse it and democrats aren’t. So they’ve gotten their judges seated when it counts, AND have blocked ours, because democrats play more by the rules and republicans make the rules up as the go and say fuck you if you call them on it.
On balance it has become a tool that is only useful to the GOP, and so yes, they don’t really want the democrats to get rid of it. It has been working splendidly for them.
Blow it up.
I do believe history backs up your little theory…
I know he was a favored pinata, but I am fairly sure that Sirota did some checking into this in the final days of OpenLeft and discovered this was the case.
Republicans thought they could just declare the President couldn’t appoint any judges to the DC court, regardless of who they were, and they thought Democrats would just take it. I don’t get it.
I think they made a perfectly rational gamble, based on a lot of experience, that Reid still had too many bedwetters in his caucus to get to 51 votes. But as so often, they overplayed their hand. At least we think that they did- best to wait for the vote to actually happen before we celebrate.
Risking future loss of Dem majority vs. cleaning up Congressional process. Isn’t that the calculation?
To me the filibuster has always been an odd rule for appointments as well as legislation. And the version of filibuster which stands now, which involves none of that “noble” footage of John Doe speaking until collapse, nor includes a requirement for all the members of the filibustering party to be present, is just SO broken.
Any trimming of the excess “veto points” that are embedded in Congress, whether filibuster, secret holds or whatever is a positive step in reforming the broken Congress, IMHO.
So, I’m easily willing to risk Dem power in the future for this careful measured trimming of filibuster usage.
Just do it.
Do it, Harry.
I don’t understand the worry over a possible filibuster-free Senate under Republican control in 2015. Obama is in office through 2016, so there will be no more Scalias appointed in 2015-2016. The scary scenario is a Republican President and a Republican Senate, which cannot happen until 2017 at the earliest. However, in 2016 the GOP must defend their 2010 gains in a Presidential election year. Isn’t it more likely they will lose seats in the Senate then?
What I’m rambling up to is: I see no downside to killing the filibuster in the short to medium term. None at all. SO DO IT.
I find myself, just for a moment, reverting back to my catholic upbringing.
Dear God,
Please give the democrats the balls to actually do it this time.
Amen
Crawl in your fallout shelter! Do it on time! So typical, calling a major policy issue/decision nuclear—as in nuclear bomb: such war imagery only serves to make war itself less horrendous: war on drugs, war on terrorism, war on poverty, war on war and on and on and on. Maybe one day no one will be able to tell the difference between a real, violent war and a poliltical stance.