Sarah Binder asks all the right questions in her piece on the prospect for filibuster reform. Can the Democrats go nuclear on executive branch nominees but not judicial ones? Does the Republicans’ argument that the DC Circuit is just fine with three vacancies change the game so that the Dems no longer care about blowback under a GOP presidency? In other words, while it’s nice to have a veto on lifetime appointments, can the Dems tolerate a precedent that judges can be denied confirmation votes because the Republicans say we don’t need any confirmed judges?
The Dems probably have the votes to kill the filibuster for executive nominees, but until recently they did not have the votes to kill the filibuster for judicial nominees. The ludicrousness of the GOP’s argument on the DC Circuit could change that.
The argument I hear in progressive circles is that it is a mistake to think that the Republicans will respect the filibuster (for anything) the next time they are in change because the Republican Party has fundamentally changed. I think that this is probably true, and that a preemptive move that would smooth the way to filling all the judicial vacancies is therefore warranted.
But I don’t think it would be a healthy reform because without the restraint of needing some Democratic votes in the Senate, the kinds of judges the Republicans would appoint will be very frightening.
I find this whole debate quite depressing and vaguely terrifying, because it just drives home how broken our politics have become. Everywhere I look, our choices are between bad and cataclysmic.