Senate Democrats’ “nuclear option” rule change is a cynical move for a cynical time.
Majority Leader Harry Reid deployed an unprecedented procedural trick Thursday to change Senate rules to allow most presidential nominees to get through on a simple majority vote rather than the 60-vote filibuster hurdle.
The cynical rationale behind it was that Republicans would never agree with Democrats on nominees to key judgeships and executive branch positions, and that if and when Republicans regain the majority they would pull the same stunt.
It’s hard to argue with either point.
Republicans charged that Reid just wanted to deflect attention from the stumbles with the new health care law.
It’s hard to argue with that, too.
Cynicism alert: Just about everyone who's been around the Senate long enough has been on both sides of the judicial-nominees issue. Republicans sought to change the rules when they had control in 2005 – Georgia Republican U.S. Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss backed the move with an op-ed article in this newspaper — but a bipartisan "Gang of 14" came up with an agreement to filibuster judicial nominees only in "extraordinary circumstances."
Democrats argue Republicans under President Barack Obama have broken the “extraordinary circumstances” pledge.
This fight boiled over on three nominees to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the baby Supreme Court where cases on the Affordable Care Act and Environmental Protection Agency regulations will be decided.
Republicans — of course, mimicking a Democratic argument from 2005 — say the court does not have enough of a workload to justify filling the three vacancies. They also don’t want to tip the balance of the 4-4 Democrat-Republican split on the court.
Republicans also blocked Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., from leading the body overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in part because he urged more federal intervention in the housing market. The filibuster brought heat from Watt’s buddies in the Congressional Black Caucus, including Atlanta Democratic U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who urged the nuclear option in the days before it was detonated.
But in trying to pierce the gridlock, Democrats just might invite more of it. For all of the sparring, the Senate has accomplished some big legislation this year on a bipartisan basis: an immigration-reform bill, farm and nutrition policy, water projects.
In what could be a harbinger, the Senate split town amid Thursday’s nuclear fallout without taking action on a defense authorization bill that Reid had hoped to get done before the Thanksgiving break.
The grease of the Senate – with all its procedural hurdles and built-in hours of debate – is “unanimous consent” agreements. Without those handshake deals, action could just about grind to a halt.
Many Republicans senators expressed concern that the Senate could become a place where the majority rams its agenda through with ease.
“It’s pretty obvious the Senate’s going to be converted into the House,” Chambliss said, anticipating the 51-vote rule will soon be applied to all legislation. “And that’s not the way the people who wrote the Constitution intended it to be.”
But the immediate threat is just the opposite: The Senate shuts down.
“There’s no trust left now,” Isakson said, “so that’s entirely possible.”
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