Friday, November 20, 2009
Editorial: Filibuster follies
Republicans use a tactic to block judicial nominees that they decried as unconstitutional a few years ago.
From the RoundTable blog
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GOP hypocrisy hit new heights Tuesday as Republicans in the Senate attempted to filibuster President Obama's nominee for a vacant seat on the 7th U.S. Court of Appeals. Just four years ago, these same Republicans denounced such filibusters as an affront to the Constitution.
"This is strictly about whether or not a minority of senators is going to prevent the president from being able to name and get confirmed judges that he chooses after he's been elected by the American people," said Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., back in 2005. Then Republicans were upset that Democrats had used the filibuster against a handful of President Bush's more extreme ideological nominees.
Obama signaled a desire to end the rancor and partisan maneuvering over judicial appointments with his nomination of U.S. District Judge David Hamilton. The nomination earned the strong support of Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. Hamilton is hardly a partisan ideologue, having served as counsel for Republican Gov. Evan Bayh in the late 1980s and early '90s.
More proof of his moderation comes from the outrageous contortions special interest groups have used in order to gin up opposition against him. He was "a fundraiser for the liberal activist group ACORN," according to a statement by a group of conservative opponents, including former Attorney General Edwin Meese. Well, actually, he worked for ACORN for a month or two right after college, going door-to-door asking for money.
The opposition has also centered on a couple of rulings -- one that correctly said that it was unconstitutional for the Indiana House of Representatives to open sessions with sectarian prayers, and another that struck down as an undue burden a requirement for women to visit a clinic twice before obtaining an abortion.
Filibusters against judicial nominees should be rare, used only in the case of truly extreme nominees.
Despite all the outrage (which now appears completely feigned) directed at Democrats in 2005 over filibusters aimed at blocking several of President Bush's judicial nominees, Democrats approved dozens of his uncontroversial nominees with little delay.
Republicans, on the other hand, have been dragging their feet on Obama's nominees -- denying them the up-or-down vote in the Senate they recently argued was every judicial nominee's right.
