The Interocitor

Phoney Filibuster

The Senate "leadership" has scheduled a "debate" for today and tonight, to publicize the Democrats' mendacious filibuster of several appellate judges. But the way they are doing it will only serve to keep a few senators sleepless (if that), and has utterly no hope of ending the filibusters.

For 30 straight hours -- from Wednesday evening through midnight Thursday -- Republicans and Democrats will condemn each other in 30-minutes face-offs over four filibustered U.S. Appeals Court nominees: Alabama Attorney General William Pryor, Texas judge Priscilla Owen, Mississippi judge Charles Pickering and Hispanic lawyer Miguel Estrada.

What rubbish. Do this the old fashioned-way. Bring the confirmations to the floor, and let the Democrats talk as long as they can (or dare). Days, weeks, months, whatever, 24 & 7. Stop all other business until it's resolved. Painless, gentlemanly filibusters are a recent, bad, invention, allowing too much business to be stopped by a minority. Make them work for it.

But this grandstand act, which will gain the Republicans only bad publicity (for not being serious) is useless. I put the odds at about $1000 versus a jelly doughnut that nothing changes. Utter waste of time.

UPDATE: Looking over at Lawrence Solum's excellent Legal Theory Blog, I note that Senate rules require a quorum to force a filibuster to continue, and only requires one opposing Senator to be present to prevent a vote. This makes breaking a large-minority filibuster impossible, since the filibustering side (alone) gets to use a tag team. Suggested fix: 2/3rds of a quorum be made sufficient to end debate, without wating for members to return to the chamber. Failing this, end the filibuster rule, at least for nominations. Maybe it's time to end it for good.

Posted by Kevin Murphy at November 12, 2003 08:42 AM | TrackBack