Paging the Gang of 14
6March 18, 2009 by Tyson Wynn
Back when the Republican-controlled Senate talked about giving President Bush’s judicial nominees a straight up-or-down, simple majority consent vote rather than requiring the typical 60 votes needed for cloture, it was called the NUCLEAR OPTION. Ohhhh, scary!
That’s when that Gang of 14 swooped in to save the day and the nation. Seven Dems and 7 RINOs came together to preserve some Sentaorial dignity (oxymoronic, I know). The Dems are very noisy when in the minority, and they suddenly came to understand how important the rights of the minority are. Then they became the majority again. And now it’s not the nuclear option. It’s “a parliamentary procedure called reconciliation.”
Specifically,
Reconciliation reduces the number of votes needed to pass legislation in the 100-seat Senate to a simple majority rather than the 60 required to overcome resistance to major bills. The tactic also limits debate to no more than 20 hours and imposes restrictions on amendments.
We’ll see how those seven Dems who felt it so imprtant to preserve the traditions and dignity of the chamber when they were in the minority vote when they are in the majority. And we’ll also see how the media never mentions the term “Nuclear Option.”
Consent for the nomination power of presidents is very different from the legislative process. We’ll see where the chips fall.
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6 comments
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Tyson,
I must request that you tell the whole story. I did just five minutes of clicking around and discovered some information you omitted from your post. The first is in the article you linked. If someone simply reads your thoughts on the story and did not read the story itself, they would be very misled by your post.
“The procedure was created 40 years ago as a way of making it easier for lawmakers to cut the federal budget deficit. It has been increasingly used in recent years to protect bills from partisan attacks. Former President George W. Bush employed the practice to muscle tax cuts through the Senate, while Democrats used it in 2007 to cut subsidies to student-loan providers such as Reston, Virginia-based Sallie Mae, officially SLM Corp.”
This seems to be a scheme both sides of the isle are using.
Second is an answer to the question you posed about the gang of fourteen. Four of the Democrats involved in the original gang have signed a letter of opposition of the use of reconciliation for these matters. They are Robert Byrd, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, and Mark Pryor (not the pitcher). They are joined by 8 more Democrats in opposing the measure. Do you have any information on how many Republicans opposed the use of this tactic during the Bush years?
Enjoying the weather,
Josh
P.S. How does one do the fancy offset quoting you used in your post?
Sorry one last thought. Before Tyson says “The other side doing it does not make it OK”, I will say it is not OK to use this tactic on such large issues as these. What the other side doing it DOES do is mean we should be critics of anyone who employs this method.
Generally speaking, the “nuclear option” refers to attempts by GOP senators to move the body from a “unanimous consent” rule to a majority rule without the consent of the minority party as it applied to the Senate’s “advise and consent” power with regard to judicial nominations. The GOP majority at the time anticipated that they would receive a favorable ruling from the presiding officer: VP Cheney.
What brought all this a head were attempts by the Bush administration to populate the circuit courts — the intermediate body between the district courts and the Supreme Court — with ideological conservatives. The administration persuaded the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Orrin Hatch (R-UT), to suspend Rule IV, otherwise kwon as the “blue slip rule” on the committee, which allowed minority members of the committee to reject controversial nominations at the committee level. The parties had alternated between a 1-2 “blue slip” requirement to stop a controversial nomination. Democrats on the committee characterized the rule change as a violation of previously accepted Senate committe rules protocol.
This rule prevented presidents from nominating particularly controversial candidates to sensitive posts on the circuit court of appeals, and both parties employed the rule to weed out nominees judged by either party to be excessively ideological.
Republicans were correct in claiming that filibusters had never been employed on judicial nominees, but the reason is that committee rules rendered such an extreme strategy unnecessary. Democrats determined that they would hold fire on all reasonable district court nominees, but that they would filibuster the most extreme of the circuit court nominations.
Having provided that background, I would be curious to see whether or not Democrats put the blue slip back into practice, or if they have continued down the path of partisan erosion of Senate comity that is likely to lead the Senate in a more majoritarian direction. Such a move would likely lead to a weaker Senate, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on one’s political perspective.
Visiting all of my Twitter friends today. I find it interesting that you have the opinion that the Democrats get noisy when they’re the minority because I feel like the Republicans get noisy when they’re the minority.lol Perhaps it’s the nature of taking a side, no?
There’s an old political saying of which Founding Father Roger Sherman (or one of the other of the second-tier framers whose wisdom has been neglected outside of their home states): “When you’re in the minority, talk! When you’re in the majority, vote!”