Sen. Jeff Sessions

The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously endorsed a compromise to decrease the federal sentencing disparity for possession of crack versus powder cocaine today. Considering Sen. Dick Durbin's bill to eliminate the 100-to-1 sentencing ratio, Democrats acquiesced to an amendment proposed by ranking Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions (right), which would reduce the disparity to a 18-to-1 ratio. By a vote of 19-0, the committee reported a bill bearing the reduced disparity to the Senate floor.

The virtues of ending the sentencing disparity were laid out by Adam Serwer, in The American Prospect this morning: 

More than 20 years since the passage of the law [responsible for the sentencing disparity], the arbitrarily draconian penalties for crack cocaine have contributed to the increasing racial disparities in the U.S. prison system and helped swell the number of those behind bars to fully more than 1 percent of the entire U.S. population.

The sheer number of people behind bars isn't just busting state budgets; it's helped destroy families and neighborhoods with not much discernible effect on the drug trade.

Today, the Senate voted for cloture 70-29 on the nomination of Judge David Hamilton to the U.S. Court of Appeals to the Seventh Circuit. Senator Jeff Sessions (pictured at right -- click to zoom) attempted unsuccessfully to lead a filibuster Hamilton, a federal district judge. 

Earlier today, The Washington Post published an editorial entitled "Giving Hypocrisy a Bad Name," saying, "We hope that Republicans in large numbers heed Mr. Lugar's words of praise for Judge Hamilton's record, intellect and character and allow a vote -- and then vote in favor of confirmation."

"In this instance, a vote for Judge Hamilton will be a vote to restore much needed comity and integrity to the process -- qualities that the next Republican president will greatly appreciate when his nominees are considered," observes The Post.

At Huffington Post, Sam Stein turns up a document from November, 2003, when President Bush was selecting the newest members of the federal judiciary, that offers further evidence of conservatives' change in approach. Stein highlights a white paper arguing that judicial filibusters are unconsitutional. The paper is produced by the Federalist Society, who Stein describes as "the crown jewel of the conservative legal movement."

For more than two centuries, an unwritten Senate rule against the filibustering of judicial nominees has reinforced the constitutional design of the judicial confirmation process. The recent break with this longstanding tradition has set a worrisome precedent that raises serious constitutional questions. By intruding upon the power constitutionally vested in the President to nominate and appoint federal judges, and upon the power of the Senate majority to consent to the President's nominees, judicial filibusters pose a unique threat both to the separation of powers and to the independence of the federal judiciary.