Since nobody answered, I will use my one bump. Why is 60 so great? 50 sounds nice. 67 sounds nice. Why is 60 like it is contained on tablets carried down from Moses?
There was only one filibuster in Supreme Court confirmation history; it was bipartisan and at the time needed 67 votes for cloture. Why is a man now judged by his decency only if he insists on 60?
60 was what people decided on back when they were trying to make things good, and between that decision and others it turned our country into the most powerful and looked up to nation on Earth.
51 is what people changed it to when they were trying to steal from the cookie jar.
Gosh, that’s not arbitrary. We turned into the most powerful nation on Earth after 1975 because we changed cloture rules in the Senate, huh? And, maybe some other things too, you add.
The United States managed to build a reasonably powerful nation on the world stage – enough to swing World War I our way – with no cloture rule at all. In fact, we adopted the 67 vote rule in 1917 and used it first in 1919 to end a filibuster against the Treaty of Versailles. (And we all know how great the Treaty of Versailles worked out, amirite?)
So I guess those Senators were pieces of crap for not knowing that 60 was the magic number. And those Senators from 1789 to 1917 were misanthropic malefactors on the order of Thanos and Lex Luthor, only without the costumes?
Thank God the Democrats gained four seats for a 61 vote majority in 1974’s elections, and instantly decided (undoubtedly totally coincidentally) that 60 votes was the right number. They must have been the only stalwarts against the forces of evil, dedicated to truth, justice, and the American way.
That about right?
Or is it slightly possible, just as a wacky alternate theory, that both 60 and 67 were arbitrary supermajority numbers with no inherent rightness to them?
For the heck of it, what if you did away with the Senate Whip positions, i.e. stripped the offices of all power and prestige? You’d reduce the ability of the parties to try to force party-line votes, so legislation is less likely to come down to “well, in this session, we have 52 guys and they have 48” and more akin to “well, we’re going to lose three or four of our nuttiest extremists on this, but maybe we can pick up five or more of their guys if we toss them a bone.”
I am trying to remember. How did the rule get changed from 60 to 51?
Without an across-the-board refusal by ALL the potential candidates to accept at below a certain number, the whole discussion is moot anyway.
A lot of bad would just disappear, if the rule was 90. Having to propose candidates who have a good chance of meeting that standard would clean up the process dramatically.
Wow, it’s deja vu all over again!
Not really. If RBG retires tomorrow, why would Trump even try to get anyone confirmed? And then when Hillary runs again in 2020, but wins this time, why would any Republicans vote to have RGB replaced?
Sometimes things which seem superficially similar can be very different.
The general idea that a prospective appointee should disclose upfront things which will have a huge impact down the road is hardly controversial. But whether or not something is a huge impact may or may not be the case in a given instance.
In the case of Trump and Sessions, you wouldn’t think there was such a big difference whether Sessions or (fellow-Republican and Trump appointee) Rosenstein ran the investigation, and the fact that Trump thought this was a big deal suggested (along with other evidence) that Trump wanted to exert influence over this investigation by having it run by someone loyal to him and in closer contact.
By contrast, in the case of Kavanagh, it’s virtually certain that Kavanagh will not be confirmed if 60 votes are required. So Kavanagh insisting on the standard proposed by the OP would amount to him actively sabotaging his own nomination. Accepting a nomination with the secret intention of sabotaging it is immoral IMO.
And indeed, the OP admits that there is nothing constitutional or legal about a supermajority anyways. Why should there be a supermajority in the Senate required, not only for judicial nominees, but for ordinary legislation?
It is certainly not historical. Only in the past ten or fifteen years has a supermajority been a regular requirement. Clarence Thomas got confirmed without a filibuster. Clinton’s tax plan and crime bills were both passed in the Senate with far less than 60 votes.
I used to agree with the principle of the filibuster, but today when everything is filibustered, it means that nobody can do anything. Especially with the extreme partisanship we have today. The federal government is paralyzed. Time to end the filibuster, not make judicial nominees pledge to resurrect it.
If Kavanaugh were to say “I won’t take my post unless 60 Senators vote for me” he’d promptly be replaced by a new Trump nominee who wouldn’t stipulate such conditions.