filibuster

by Jeremy Leaming

Filibuster reform is needed because Senate Republicans have gone over a cliff of some sort, using the tool in an unprecedented manner to thwart consideration of significant legislation and, of course, scuttle or delay some judicial nominations.

At People For Blog, Paul nails Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for his wildly misleading blather about the filibuster. Pointing to Grassley’s Dec. 3 statement on supposedly “setting the record straight” on consideration of judicial nominations during lame-duck sessions, Paul notes that the senator avoided the “topic completely,” and instead crowed about his party’s generosity for voting on at least one nominee during the lame-duck Congress. Grassley claimed in his statement that it is rare for the Senate to confirm judges during lame-duck sessions in presidential election years. “Republicans have been more than fair to this President and his judicial nominations,” Grassley’s statement reads.

Beyond misleading, Grassley’s statement is disingenuous. Senate Republicans have been anything but generous to President Obama. Instead they have used the threat of filibuster and other delaying tactics to slow the pace of confirmations. Their actions have led to a federal bench with more than 80 vacancies, many of them considered judicial emergencies. (See JudicialNominations.org for more on the crisis surrounding the federal courts.)  

The blockade of judges, as Paul notes, has also created “a huge backlog” of nominees to confirm. This week the Senate has confirmed two of the 19 nominations left pending when it recessed in August for campaigning. The Senate confirmed Paul Grimm, for a seat on the district court in Maryland and Michael P. Shea for a district court seat in Connecticut. Both nominees cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee months ago. That means up-or-down votes on those nominees and the 17 others in a functioning Senate should have occurred months ago. Republicans, however, may have wanted to stall those nominations in hopes that their party would capture the White House and fill the vacancies with right-wing judges.

by Nicole Flatow

The “partisan intensity” surrounding the Senate confirmation process of judicial nominees “makes the judiciary look politicized when it is not” and “has to stop,” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said during an address at the 2012 Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference in Maui.

The remarks are the latest in a string of calls to end Senate obstruction of judicial nominees from judges and legal leaders, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Kennedy also questioned the functioning of the Senate confirmation process during the 2010 Ninth Circuit conference, saying, “It's important for the public to understand that the excellence of the federal judiciary is at risk.” Two years later, Kennedy is expressing even greater alarm.

“The Constitution requires Senate confirmation,” Kennedy said this week. “The Senate is a political entity and will act in a political way and that’s quite proper. … On the other hand, there is a difference in a political function and a partisan function, and the current climate is one in which highly qualified eminent practitioners of the law simply do not want to subject themselves to this process.”