I’m not surprised that Daily Kos is running a petition to convince the Senate Democrats to kill the filibuster for judicial nominations. A lot of outside groups are convinced that Harry Reid doesn’t have the votes to “go nuclear” on judicial nominees because too many Democrats are concerned about giving away their ability to obstruct lifetime nominations when they inevitably return to the minority some day. However, people close to Reid aren’t saying that he doesn’t have the votes.
A senior Democratic aide said Reid has not conducted a recent whip count and questioned how outside groups or rank-and-file Democratic senators would know the vote count if the leader attempted a rule change immediately.
“Any declarative statements at this point are extremely premature,” said the senior aide.
At this point, after filibustering two nominees to the DC Circuit of Appeals, and on the cusp of filibustering a third, the Republicans are taunting the Democrats:
“Many of those on the other side who are clamoring for rules change and almost falling over themselves to do it have never served a single day in the minority,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said Tuesday in a floor speech. “All I can say is this – be careful what you wish for.”
“So if the Democrats are bent on changing the rules, then I say go ahead,” he said. “There are a lot more Scalias and [Clarence] Thomases that we’d love to put on the bench. The nominees we’d nominate and put on the bench with 51 votes would interpret the constitution as it was written.”
It’s a funny thing, because no one filibustered Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas (who was confirmed with 52 votes), and Samuel Alito overcame John Kerry’s filibuster with 72 votes before being confirmed with a mere fifty-eight. In other words, Sen. Grassley is threatening to do something that has been the historical norm, which is allow judges to get an up-or-down vote rather than having to receive 60 votes to be confirmed.
The Democrats have no choice but to stand up to this bullying. If they won’t, we will need to know which senators are standing in the way and focus our attention on them.
