Revenge of the Moderates...
May 24, 2005 @ 05:04 AMThank God.
After weeks of hearing the spew from both sides of the isle over Judicial filibusters and the "nuclear option," it appears as if there IS intelligence life in the Senate after all. But first, let me piss of people on both sides of the issue.
There are a couple of facts that I think most rational people - those willing to look past their partisan loyalties - can agree on:
- Filibustering judicial nominations should ONLY be used in extreme cases. A nominee who disagrees with your specific political viewpoint is NOT an extreme case. The democrats have been extremely reckless in invoking the filibuster so easily.
- You can NOT change the rules of the Senate just because you have a majority. Changing the rules of the Senate to ram through the 2% of Bush’s nominees that are being filibustered is reckless, power-hungry, and sets a HORRIBLE precident. It’s appalling that that option was even brought up.
Here’s the great part: neither the Republican leadership nor the Democratic leadership is particularly happy about the whole thing. But this group of moderates has managed to grab enough votes on both sides that the Republicans no longer have the votes necessary to ban judicial filibustering, and Democrats no longer have the votes necessary to maintain a filibuster. This group of 14 senators have essentially blackmailed their respective parties into working together.
And good for them. The Repubs and Demos have both been irresponsible babies about this whole thing. I’m glad to see some real leaders stepping up.