Harry Reid to Frist: Go Nuclear and We'll Shut Down the Senate
Posted on March 16, 2005
The imminent battle over filibusters and Bush's judicial nominations is heating up. Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid took his strongest position yet on Senator Frist's threat of "going nuclear." The so-called "nuclear option", e.g., obtaining a parliamentary ruling declaring that filibusters are unconstitutional. That ruling would change the fact that it actually takes 60 votes to get any legislation passed in the Senate. That extreme option has never been exercised by either party, because the potential for blowback is horrific. Most senators realize that times change and that one day their party may need the filibuster option.
Although they have actually approved most of President Bush's judicial nominations, Senator Frist is furious that ten judges couldn't get a floor vote. But Democrats say that those ten are so radical, so extremely conservative, that they must not be permitted to be appointed to a bench for life. And I have to agree. Nominee William G. Myers, for example, has stated his hostility to the right to privacy (on which the right to birth control is based), any environmental laws, free speech and equal protection. It gets better. He has almost no litigation experience and more than one third of the panel of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary rejected him as "unqualified" for the bench.
Minority Leader Reid and the Democratic senators showed up on the Capitol steps yesterday to introduce a two-page letter Reid wrote to Frist which said that if Republicans go forward with the nuclear option,
"the majority should not expect to receive cooperation from the minority in the conduct of Senate business." He said Democrats would cooperate on legislation "supporting our troops" and keeping the government running, but otherwise would refuse to facilitate actions "even on routine matters."In other words: at his signal, Unleash Hell. Harry Reid is certainly displaying some hidden depths, I must say. More power to him.