No, he didn’t – but there was some inference from his words that this was his argument. But he didn’t actually endorse it, so that’s why I asked him what his argument was.
I think it’s pretty clear that he would not include Supreme Court justices in this, since they do not fit his criteria. The court was not left vacant for years due to the filibuster.
Personally, I would ideally get rid of lifetime judges entirely. I’d give them long terms, but not lifetime. And I’d have a system that prevented leaving them vacant, with someone else automatically filling in. Then we could keep the filibuster for them, too, and keep it consistent.
My main problem with the filibuster is that it can lead to a congress that can’t do anything, and that is a huge problem. We need a legislative body that can act, or else we’re just going to have to keep devolving power to other positions.
But I’m not sure how to fix the problem of basically half the country opposing every decision. It’s not just. If a filibuster keeps that from happening–making only bipartisan bills make it through in a nearly evenly divided legislature, I kinda have to accept it.
Everything a divided congress does should be bipartisan. What passes the Senate should be 52% Republican and 48% Democrat.
Without this, though, the filibuster seems like a good idea–even if I hate it when Republicans use it to block everything and avoid compromise.
That requires a constitutional amendment, though, not simply a majority vote of the Senate chamber.
So you’re in favor of the filibuster now? And forever more?
The filibuster is not going to be discussed in abstract. By election time, even if not immediately, it will be discussed in the context of some specific issue – or multiple issues – that the president, the house, and a majority of senators voted for, but which was blocked via filibuster because Senator X takes his orders from Chuck Schumer. Good luck with that in Missouri, Montana, etc.
So long as the filibuster was a longstanding tradition, Dems could defend it on principle. Harry Reid took that away, probably forever. The Pubs could restore it on principle, but it isn’t in their interest to do so.
Orrin Hatch also wants to keep the filibuster. However:
Sounds to me like the right kind of proportionate response to Reid nuking it for lower court nominees in 2013…
Keeping the filibuster is essential for Republicans, for the simple reason that a small government party is supposed to be more concerned about stopping things than passing things.
However, for judicial nominees the Democrats already used the nuclear option. It is entirely fair for Republicans to include SCOTUS nominees. There’s no legitimate reason to treat lower court and Supreme Court nominees differently.
But for passing laws, the filibuster must remain in place.
So? Did I say it was remotely practical? No. I pointed out the ideal, because, if I don’t, I will get people acting like I’m being inconsistent when I later say I hate the filibuster.
See? No, I don’t like it, but I have to begrudgingly accept it. I am not remotely in favor of it forever. If, later, the circumstances change and removing the filibuster makes for a better outcome (which includes long term effects, not just the short term of getting something good passed), then I will want to change it. Absent something from the Bible, the only “good and evil” are better and worse outcomes, not dogged adherence to rules, which Jesus condemned in the Pharisees.
And I will continue to get angry when the filibuster is used not as a tool for compromise, and instead as a tool to block, or for the minority to get their way. But, given past history, I bet that it will nearly always be the Republicans who refuse to compromise, even when they are the majority. And so I will be angry at them.
For example, I will very much expect Democrats to try to keep a straight conservative justice off the court. I will not expect them to try and force a straight liberal on the court. Since we are divided roughly 50/50, I will expect a moderate, with maybe a slight conservative lean. That is not using it to get their way, since “their way” would be a liberal justice.
And I fully expect Republicans to try and push through the most conservative justice they can find. Because compromise, the thing they are supposed to do, is not in their wheelhouse. This will be wrong, and would be even if they were the minority party.
The point of congress is to represent the people, and the people are roughly equally divided.
Yes, there is. Because the Democrats have never used the filibuster to keep the court vacant. That was the reason it was removed, not to get liberal justices on the lower courts.
And it is the Republicans who keep saying the court should not be partisan, saying textualism and originalism should rule the day. But then they pick conservative justices.
This suggests to me that you are describing a situation in which the “good” outcome determines whether the filibuster should exist.
I disagree with this approach.
Or, to be clearer, I agree with it as long as I am the one who gets to determine what constitutes “good,” in the equation.
But if you’re unwilling to cede that authority to me, I am equally unwilling to cede it to you.
The compromise we must both reach is that we agree in advance on a set of rules – not in mindless service of the rules, as the Pharisees might, but as a recognition that this is the neutral method when neither side knows who will have a majority.
Then the rules control. If you insist on changing the rules to advance “good,” then so do I. You have no more right than I do to define “good.”
So we can leave it that every party will change the rules to accomplish “good” as they see it, or (as I prefer) we adopt a set of rules and then accept their use even when we don’t like the results.
Your call.
What specific judge do you believe are conservative and not textualists or originalists?
Always be suspicious whenever Bricker uses the word “specifically”. He’s inviting you to suffer the Death of a Thousand Nitpicks.
Everyone’s human, so you can find decisions where a certain justice departed from his philosophy, but for the most part the conservative justices have been originalists and/or textualists. Just like liberals can be relied upon in the vast majority of cases to just do whatever Democrats want.
But then he actually has an articulated POV. As does BigT. They seem more honest than those who sit on the sidelines hurling tomatoes.