# Senate ends the filibuster for executive and judicial nominees **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 21, 2013, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458 "2013-11-21T18:44:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458/41 "2013-11-22T05:23:41Z")
Are the Democrats so arrogant that they think they’ll control the Senate forever? At some point there will be a Rep majority. Then the Democrats will curse the day that Reid changed the rules. This change ultimately screws both sides. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458/42 "2013-11-22T05:37:49Z")
“This is the single most significant vote any one of us will cast in my 32 years in the Senate. I suspect the Senator would agree with that. We should make no mistake. **This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power. It is a fundamental power grab by the majority party** …” –Senator Joe Biden, May 2005. “What [the American people] don’t expect is for one party, be it Republican or Democrat, to change the rules in the middle of the game so they can make all the decisions while the other party is told to sit down and keep quiet.” –Senator Barack Obama, April 2005 “A simple majority can change anything. Mr. President, this is the way it should be. You should not be able to come in here and change willy-nilly a rule of the Senate.” –Senator Harry Reid, May 2005 Intransigent, my foot. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458/43 "2013-11-22T06:10:20Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Are the Democrats so arrogant that they think they’ll control the Senate forever? > > At some point there will be a Rep majority. Then the Democrats will curse the day that Reid changed the rules. This change ultimately screws both sides. The Republicans would certainly have done it themselves, if the Democrats had started using the Filibuster as profligately. They threatened to change the rules, back when the Democrats were using it far more sparingly. Yes, it screws both sides, but the Republicans were the fools by using it at every drop of a hat, instead of reserving it as a tool-of-last-resort, as it had been used for over a century. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458/44 "2013-11-22T07:42:10Z")
Too bad they also didn’t end the fillibuster period. That they can still use it for regular legislation is stupid. But it sounds like it’ll be gone entirely in 2014 when republicans win control of the senate (I see this as inevitable). So the republicans will do one decent thing at least, if they follow through with the nuclear option of destroying the fillibuster entirely. It was long overdue. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458/45 "2013-11-22T15:00:40Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Are the Democrats so arrogant that they think they’ll control the Senate forever? > > At some point there will be a Rep majority. Then the Democrats will curse the day that Reid changed the rules. This change ultimately screws both sides. No, it ultimately allows a majority to decide when to vote on certain nominations, rather than a super-majority. By allowing a simple majority to conduct business, it allows the nation’s business to be conducted by the party in control of the chamber, rather than at the pleasure of party that is perpetually pissed off. Will the Democrats someday be in the minority? Of course, and then they will not be able to control the agenda of the chamber on appointments. Fair play is not screwing both sides. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458/46 "2013-11-22T15:06:41Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > It definitely doesn’t include Supreme Court justices. But no Supreme Court justice has been filibustered. I predict that will change if say Scalia retired and Obama got to name his replacement. I applaud the move, I don’t think for a minute that McConnell would hesitate to eliminate all filibusters should he gain the majority and had a Republican president, even if Reid didn’t do what he did. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458/47 "2013-11-22T16:36:05Z")
I have to laugh at the idea of Republicans threatening to nominate more Scalias and Alitos and Janice Rogers Browns if they’re ever in the majority again. Is there a word for threatening to do the thing you intend to do regardless? Also, the notion that executive branch nominees are something that should be subject to the filibuster is ridiculous. Judges serve for life, so the filibuster is actually somewhat defensible there. But executive branch appointees get cycled out every time a new president assumes power, so filibusters should be extremely rare in that case, like if the president wants to appoint a Rasputin, or Ron Paul to head the Federal Reserve. Does anyone really believe that a Rasputin was nominated to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and needs to be stopped? ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458/48 "2013-11-22T17:32:37Z")
Several sources have mentioned another benefit–this means Obama can shake his cabinet up. In particular, he could let Sebelius go and hopefully take some of the heat off from the ACA implementation. Before this he never would have been able to get a replacement confirmed. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458/49 "2013-11-22T20:37:57Z")
Andrew Cohen had a great column in The Atlantic about why ending the filibuster for judicial nominees would be a good thing, because it will force discussions about nominees to be in the open and on his/her own respective merits. [Link](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-filibusters-demise-is-great-news-for-judicial-confirmation-hearings/281736/) > [@](#): > > There is nothing “nuclear” about permitting a majority of elected officials to do what the Constitution requires and demands that they do: vote on which judges ought to sit on the nation’s benches. What was “nuclear” was the way in which Republican senators these past few months years have refused to vote up or down on judicial nominees who were patently smart, able, dedicated to public service, and “mainstream.” > > By the time you read this, a million words will have been read or spoken about what the new limits on the filibuster mean to Washington politics and to the American people. You will have heard all the screeds and justifications from the politicians and the advocates and the lawyers and the lobbyists. Let me just briefly add this note: The coming era means that Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for federal judges now will be consistently more intense, partisan, and revelatory than they have ever been before. > > This, folks, is rockin’ good news. > > The relentless use of the filibuster shifted the fight over judicial nominees from the Judiciary Committee to the floor of the Senate. But there wasn’t much meaningful debate of the merits of the nominees’ qualifications in either place, especially recently… . > > But now the fight over these public servants shifts back to the Judiciary Committee—where it belongs and where there now exists a great deal of built-in political incentive to hold hearings where people actually have conversations of great weight and substance. > > Knowing they can no longer hold up nominees for no good reason on the Senate floor, Judiciary Committee Republicans instead will be forced to seek substantive ways to justify a decision to vote “no” on Obama nominees. They will ask tougher questions of the nominees and require those nominees to provide more candid and complete answers. They will complain if and when candidates fail to do so. Republicans, in other words, will seek to elicit information about these candidates during hearings that can be used against those candidates when their nominations come up for a vote. And when Democrats become the minority again in the Senate they, too, will employ these tactics. This is not remotely a bad thing. Judicial nominees should be evaluated more in public on the merits of their work and the arcs of their careers. They should have to reveal more about their judicial ideologies, to the extent they have any. As now-Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan famously said in 2010 during her love-in with the Judiciary Committee, judicial nominations have become “vapid and hollow” affairs in which the senators (of both parties) prattle on with prepared speeches while the candidates try to offer as little insight as possible about their judicial philosophies. > > Just think back to the past four confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court. Remember when now-Chief Justice John Roberts talked in his confirmation hearing about how judges have to be neutral umpires—to wide applause? Turns out he calls strikes for one team and balls for the other, right? Remember how few substantive questions were posed to now-Justice Samuel Alito, then a little-known federal appeals-court judge? Was he forced to betray even a whiff of the corporate-friendly ideologue he has been on the Court? Of course not. Hearings for lower court judges have been even less revealing. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458/50 "2013-11-22T21:27:51Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Are the Democrats so arrogant that they think they’ll control the Senate forever? > > At some point there will be a Rep majority. Then the Democrats will curse the day that Reid changed the rules. This change ultimately screws both sides. The republicans can change the rules themselves when they’re in power. Do you really think the current Republicans would fail to make that power grab out of some sense of fairness or something? The reality is that the republicans put well-meaning democrats in a tricky position. Essentially, the Republicans are willing to trash the country if they think the public will blame the democrats for the trashing just a little bit more. So they continuously act out of pure partisan politics rather than any greater purpose. So what can the democrats do? They either try to act like the responsible adults and do what they think is best for the country overall, while the republicans stir up fake controversies and stymy their attempts to run the government in any way they can, or they fight fire with fire and we’re all worse off for it. Either of their choices either concede power to the republicans, leading to the country overall being worse, or stoop to their level, leading to the country being overall worse. It’s a really tough position. So when they finally make a move like this, after years of reluctance, it isn’t driven by arrogance. It’s not a naked power grab. It’s a realization that despite all efforts to make it so, they aren’t going to make republicans act like they actually want responsible governance. They’re forced to make this move to fight unprecedented obstructionism simply to be able to govern. It’s a desperation move after all previous good-will efforts have failed. Furthermore, given the clear republican goal of political power above all else, it seems clear that if and when they took control again, they would change the rules in their favor anyway. There’s no reason to think the republican party as it currently operates would maintain the rules that the democrats were so reluctant to cast off. The great mistake of the democrats in this instance is taking way too long to realize that they couldn’t appeal to the good nature or civic duty of the opposition, that their goals are no longer to do what’s best for the country. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2013, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458/51 "2013-11-23T03:41:48Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > The republicans can change the rules themselves when they’re in power. Do you really think the current Republicans would fail to make that power grab out of some sense of fairness or something? > > The reality is that the republicans put well-meaning democrats in a tricky position. Essentially, the Republicans are willing to trash the country if they think the public will blame the democrats for the trashing just a little bit more. So they continuously act out of pure partisan politics rather than any greater purpose. > > So what can the democrats do? They either try to act like the responsible adults and do what they think is best for the country overall, while the republicans stir up fake controversies and stymy their attempts to run the government in any way they can, or they fight fire with fire and we’re all worse off for it. Either of their choices either concede power to the republicans, leading to the country overall being worse, or stoop to their level, leading to the country being overall worse. It’s a really tough position. > > So when they finally make a move like this, after years of reluctance, it isn’t driven by arrogance. It’s not a naked power grab. It’s a realization that despite all efforts to make it so, they aren’t going to make republicans act like they actually want responsible governance. They’re forced to make this move to fight unprecedented obstructionism simply to be able to govern. It’s a desperation move after all previous good-will efforts have failed. > > Furthermore, given the clear republican goal of political power above all else, it seems clear that if and when they took control again, they would change the rules in their favor anyway. There’s no reason to think the republican party as it currently operates would maintain the rules that the democrats were so reluctant to cast off. > > The great mistake of the democrats in this instance is taking way too long to realize that they couldn’t appeal to the good nature or civic duty of the opposition, that their goals are no longer to do what’s best for the country. Do I recall correctly that in the past you had a higher opinion of Republicans than is current and not so especially good an opinion of Democrats? I ask because I seem to recall that and I am interested in how much people’s opinions are changing. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2013, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458/52 "2013-11-23T04:01:49Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > Andrew Cohen had a great column in The Atlantic about why ending the filibuster for judicial nominees would be a good thing, because it will force discussions about nominees to be in the open and on his/her own respective merits. I am living in a different country with no sort of filibuster. What we have seen is a lot of back room negotiations and little in the way of public debate. By the time a matter is put up for a vote the majority party is ready to pass it and will sometimes vote to limit debate. This deprives the minority party of any input whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2013, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458/53 "2013-11-23T05:40:10Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Do I recall correctly that in the past you had a higher opinion of Republicans than is current and not so especially good an opinion of Democrats? I ask because I seem to recall that and I am interested in how much people’s opinions are changing. Yes, my first few years on the board I was much more sympathetic to conservative and libertarian positions and various things have swayed my mind. Learning more about positions, the merits of various arguments, and the complete fucking assholery of the republican party, who would gleefully burn everything down if they could rule the ashes. And I have no tolerance for partisans who will defend this behavior, or even deny its existence, as you can see from this very thread. You could probably search for me in the pit by post and see some much more detailed, vitriolic rants in that direction. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2013, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458/54 "2013-11-23T23:04:11Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Do I recall correctly that in the past you had a higher opinion of Republicans than is current and not so especially good an opinion of Democrats? I ask because I seem to recall that and I am interested in how much people’s opinions are changing. You can number me among those who thought there wasn’t that much difference between the Dems and Pubs up to about 11 years ago. I figured they were two sides of the same corporate coin. Now I can’t imagine voting for a Republican for congress, no matter how reasonable he sounds, because the Republican leadership is batshit crazy, so I don’t want them in control. I think this is about 20% from following the news more closely than I did before I retired, and about 80% the Pubs turning very, very sharply right. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/senate-ends-the-filibuster-for-executive-and-judicial-nominees/674458.md?page=2)