Best article on recent history of the Filibuster. Well worth a read...

[ztn]

Th points in the article about the filibuster have been discussed here and there at this and other websites. Still, his is a great article by Kevin drum and deserves a read. Should this nuclear option come up again. The Left needs to go to this argument which lay it all out in black and white.

Resist the Filibuster Fiat

By Kevin Drum
Monday, January 31, 2005; Page A21

During President Bush's first term, 10 of his judicial nominees were filibustered by Senate Democrats. This month, when the 109th Congress convened, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist finally declared war... calling the filibusters an "unfortunate break with more than 200 years of Senate tradition,"

snip

Still, Frist has a point. Senate Democrats have relied on filibusters to block judicial nominees far more often than have minority parties in previous congresses. But there's good reason for this: Republicans have steadily done away with every other Senate rule that allows minorities to object to judicial nominees -- rules that Republicans took full advantage of when they were the ones out of power.

Originally, after Republicans gained control of the Senate in the 1994 elections and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch assumed control of the Judiciary Committee, the rule regarding judicial nominees was this: If a single senator from a nominee's home state objected to (or "blue-slipped") a nomination, it was dead. This rule made it easy for Republicans to obstruct Clinton's nominees.

But in 2001, when a Republican became president, Hatch suddenly reversed course and decided that it should take objections from both home-state senators to block a nominee. That made it harder for Democrats to obstruct George W. Bush's nominees.

In early 2003 Hatch went even further: Senatorial objections were merely advisory, he said. Even if both senators objected to a nomination, it could still go to the floor for a vote.

Finally, a few weeks later, yet another barrier was torn down: Hatch did away with "Rule IV," which states that at least one member of the minority has to agree in order to end discussion about a nomination and move it out of committee.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50120-2005Jan30.html
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Of course, the MSM has totally ignored these facts. makes one wonder why DEMS haven't talked more about. Idiots...

[kliljedahl]

1. So basically what we're saying is:

Republicans are hypoctites, is that news? The strongest opponents of The Big Dog's "adultery" had a lot of skeletons in their own closets.


Keith’s Barbeque Central