The Senate deal on judicial nominations

to Bill Shein

I was actually looking forward to the Dems' slowing everything to molasses for months. But how long could that have gone on, realistically? Every week, the news stories about the Democratic obstruction. Every week, Bush going on TV to demand that the Ds allow Congress to do the people's business, yada yada. Over and over, "the Dems must stop this." I think eventually they would have lost the opinion war and people would have just tired of it. And the Ds would ultimately have relented, plus they wouldn't have filibusters. If you thought the Ds would have stopped everything after the "nuclear" vote, and then the Senate GOP leadership would have just tossed their hands up and said "Oh all right, well, you got us, just give us a list of what we can do, then," I don't think that would've happened. Nor do I think the GOP would ever have agreed to retract the rule change in exchange for the D's relenting on the business of the Senate weeks down the road. The idea of righteously bringing the Senate to a halt was satisfying in theory but mostly worked as a bluff, I think, and the Rs called it, calculating that the Ds just would not have the will to stick with that on a long-term basis.

The 10-second analysis on the news shows is that the Ds blinked. Nan Aron doesn't like it. If the Rs now bring up a succession of awful circuit court nominees who all pass, yeah, it will look like a bad deal. If, on the other hand, Bush starts to consult more with the minority on the nominations -- as Lindsey Graham suggested he should last night -- maybe some form of comity will return to this issue. And maybe pigs will fly through the air too. Look, there's one now!

You talk about how some of the moderate Republicans might have voted against the rule change anyway -- you're missing the point that Warner, DeWine and the other Rs in play were leaving themselves in play precisely to negotiate an agreement, and I very much doubt they would have defied the leadership if negotiations with the other mods had broken down. I think there are probably quite a few Dems who were happy not to make this deal, but the Ds who were negotiating weren't listening to them, so it's hard to attibute responsibility for this agreement to Reid or the Ds generally.. it was 7 Democrats.

Once again, the idea that they could have slowed the Senate to a crawl on a long-term basis, or that the Senate would have figured out a way to fiunction to do basic things under that scenario, is ridiculous, I'm afraid... the Rs would not have consented to allowing the minority to dictate the agenda every day, it would just have been war every day of the week. It would not have helped the Democrats, even if they are powerless in the alternative. It's just not a strategy with any legs, it offers no way out. It presumes, again, that the Ds would have been willing to get things moving again if the Rs had reversed themselves on the rule -- but the Rs would NEVER HAVE DONE THAT, and in any event the Senate precedent on filibustering nominations, the ruling from the chair, would already have been set.

Anyway, I'm not convinced the Ds got rolled; I guess we'll see. Those seven Rs might stand up. I'm also not convinced, as you seem to be, that the Ds could have sustained 40 votes for a filibuster against Scalia as chief justice, or even Scalia's replacement, unless he is a notoriously Borkian wack job, which he is unlikely to be.. the assessment among Dems at my office is that nominees will now still be very conservative, but without the radioactively evil paper trail needed to sustain filibusters against them..

The sad reality is that the Ds actually did not have anything to bring to bear against the Rs once Frist decided to risk the war of the nuclear option.

I sympathize with how Ds feel, but there is this fantasy-land idea around the country that Harry Reid and Dick Durbin had this big gun their pocket that they could whip out after the rule change, and it would make everything better again.. Like it would give the Democrats some sort of political cover for the all-out obstruction we want, and we'd really stick it to those Republicans... dude, it just wasn't there. There was nothing viable there, beyond a few weeks of posturing that would have made people feel better: "Oooh we're sticking to our principles, we're running the show now! Here's the list of crucial spending bills that we will allow to come to the floor, Bill! We'll let you know what else can happen!"

It just does not stand up to the reality test.. it was a bluff, for the reasons elaborated previously. PLUS, after they changed the rule, they woul dhave simply lined up Pryor, Brown and Owens, plus the other two, and CONFIRMED THEM ALL, even if the Ds were in their all-out obstruction -- they couldn't stop them by filibustering, remember? and even if they had objected to every procedural motion, made them read the text of everything, etc. etc., it would have taken less than a week to confirm EVERY ONE of the nominees under the new rule.. so remind me again what the Ds gained in the nuclear scenario re: judges?? Think about it.