Just the facts: did Republicans ever filibuster judicial nominees as Democrats have done over Bush’s term? Not something similar, not other methods of holding up judicial nominations, but the same thing.
And, if not, what basis do Democrats have for claiming that Republicans have, in the past, filibustered judicial nominees?
I can’t say whether the Republcans ever filibustered Demeratic nominations when they where in the minority in the Senate, but I remeber there being controversy of them refusing to allowing some of Clinton’s nominees to come to a vote. Since the Republicans where in control of the Senate then it’s not exactly the same think, but the end result is the same. President’s nominee doesn’t get the chance to be confirmed/rejected by Senate.
Alphaboi’s response is, I believe, accurate. Our local daily paper is an “independent Democratic” voice – understandable when you consider that Josephus and Jonathan Daniels used to own it! And they made an ongoing point of documenting the vacancies in Federal judgeships in North Carolina owing to Jesse Helms having used his prerogatives to keep Clinton appointments from coming to a vote.
So no, the Republicans did not filibuster. They didn’t have to; they had other tools to block appointments they disliked.
What’s the story behind this? Senate Dems say Republicans voted to filibuster Clinton nominees.
And here they say: “Republicans also filibustered several Clinton nominees on the floor of the Senate, including Richard Paez, Marsha Berzon, Rosemary Barkett, and H. Lee Sarokin.”
LBJ nominated Abe Fortas to be Chief Justice in 1968 (raise from associate Justice). The filibuster that ensued was Republican-led.
Of course, politics being politics, claims are being bandied about that it wasn’t a “true” filibuster, but take that for what you will (we’re not in GD 
).
I’m sure that’s all accurate. I don’t recognize all those names, but Dellinger at least wasn’t nominated to the bench but rather to be Solicitor General. Presumably, the other names were nominees to other Executive Branch positions. So while it may be technically true that the GOP never filibustered Clinton judicial nominees (because they didn’t have to), they appeared to have filibustered other Clinton nominees. Note that (on this page at least), Sen. Reid makes no claim that these were judicial nominations; that seems to be something you’ve come up with on your own, cheddar. I do not know why filibusters of non-judicial positions shouldn’t somehow “count” as compared to judicial filibusters.
Indeed, there’s an argument to be made (not one I entirely buy) that blocking Exec. Branch nominees is “worse” than blocking judges. First of all, Exec. Branch nominees almost always have a shelf life of eight years at the outside (and usually much less – and they can be terminated by the president at any time). OTOH, a federal judge who doesn’t wish to retire stays on the bench until death. Therefore, a “mistake” (whatever that means) in confirming a Exec. Branch nominee would be shorter and could be fixed.
Furthermore, many people (including Senate Republicans and Democrats four years ago when John Ashcroft was nominated to be AG) take the position that a president should have largely unfettered discretion to put his own team of direct subordinates in place. That argument has considerably less force w/r/t judges that do not answer to the president and are expected to be independent of the Executive.
–Cliffy
Considering that the Republicans had control of the Senate for pretty much all of Clinton’s time in office, there was little need to filibuster. You filibuster when you lack a majority but your opponent lacks the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. Filibustering any other time is pretty pointless.