Bob Dole, hardly a neo-anything, has this to say about the time-honored practice of judicial filibuster:
When I was a leader in the Senate, a judicial filibuster was not part of my procedural playbook. Asking a senator to filibuster a judicial nomination was considered an abrogation of some 200 years of Senate tradition....Hmmm .. so, changing the rules in order to restore Senate tradition is radical, but abusing a loophole that has been spurned as unthinkable for 200 years is not?
This 60-vote standard for judicial nominees has the effect of arrogating power from the president to the Senate. Future presidents must now ask themselves whether their judicial nominees can secure the supermajority needed to break a potential filibuster. Political considerations will now become even more central to the judicial selection process. Is this what the framers intended?