"Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be." --John Adams
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| Romanticizing the filibuster |
It may seem like an opaque argument over procedural rules, but it will have lasting consequences for the nation. We refer to the Senate fight over the filibuster of presidential nominees. Democrats and Republicans reached a "compromise" to keep Democrats from using the "nuclear option" of changing the rules to prevent filibusters, but they basically got everything they wanted and Republicans got nothing.
The fight centered on a number of Barack Obama's executive branch nominees -- Republicans were blocking votes, just as then-minority Democrats did to the nominees of George W. Bush. To be sure, Republicans were just as angry with Democrat filibusters then as Democrats are incensed now. But let's look back at what Democrats once said.
In 2005, Sen. Barack Obama warned, "Everyone in this chamber knows that if the majority chooses to end the filibuster, if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate, then the fighting, the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse."
Also in 2005, Harry Reid offered this wisdom: "The filibuster is a critical tool in keeping the majority in check." He called Republican threats to change the rules a "partisan political grab" and worse, "un-American."
So much for that.
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