Even before President Barack Obama announced his first judicial nominee Tuesday, there was talk of filibusters in the Senate to block candidates for the courts.
All that has changed on the filibuster front is the identity of those who like or hate the idea.
Four years ago, the Senate Republican majority faulted the minority Democrats for threatening what they called an “unconstitutional filibuster” of President George W. Bush’s court nominees. Democrats saw the filibuster as a needed check on extremism from the majority.
Now both parties are adjusting their perspective. In the Senate, the filibuster rule allows talk to prevent action. It takes 60 votes, not just 51-vote majority, to cut off debate and bring about a vote.
In a letter to the president this month, the 41 Senate Republicans described choosing judges as a “shared constitutional responsibility.” They recommended that Obama renominate three of Bush’s failed nominees.
And they added that if the president and the Democrats do not obtain their approval for court nominees in their home states, “the Republican conference will be unable to support moving forward on that nominee.”
For veterans of the wars over judges, this looked to be an opening salvo.
“Threatening filibusters of yet-to-be-named judicial nominees … is not a good sign,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).
Nan Aron, president of the liberal Alliance for Justice, saw the Republicans as undergoing “a miraculous transformation.”
“Having sought to do away with the filibuster during the Bush administration, they are now threatening to use it at the first opportunity,” she said. “I’d say they are trying to intimidate the Obama administration and to galvanize their base.”
Conservatives say they were cheered by the Republicans’ early move.
“The letter is a remarkable show of strength and resolve on the matter of judges. I was encouraged that all 41 [GOP] senators signed it,” said Wendy Long, counsel for the Judicial Confirmation Network. “This says they are ready to give intense scrutiny when extreme folks are being nominated.”
Both sides agree that the issue of judges has an outsized importance to the base of the two parties.
“Our polls show that judges is a good issue, a huge winning issue for Republicans,” Long said. “The American people don’t agree with the Obama standard.”
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Can you spot a difference?
See how the filibuster debate has changed at chicagotrib une.com/filibuster