Monday, May 23, 2005

An Open Question To Reasonable Republicans

Given that the nuclear option of eliminating the filibuster will essentially open the door to the party in power nominating the most extremist judges that it possibly can, knowing that it merely needs a bare majority or tie in the Senate to get them approved:

Are you truly comfortable with the judiciary branch suffering the same fate as the legislative branch, morphing from a deliberative body to one where everything is decided solely on the basis of party identification? For this is the path that the nuclear option is taking us down; a partisan and divided judiciary, diminished in credibility and legitimacy.

Is this really what you want? And before you answer, think about a post-nuclear-option winter where Republican overreach and arrogance (such as, say, deploying the nuclear option) has exiled them from power for, say, 20 or 30 years. Still sound good?

A straight up-or-down vote doesn't sound too bad for appointees or laws, which persist at the sufferance of the party in power, but for someone as permanent as a judge, merely having the support of the majority party should not be enough.

3 comments:

watertiger said...

Too late. Dems caved. Made a rather half-assed deal.

Eli said...

"We have sent President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the radical right of the Republican party an undeniable message....the abuse of power will not be tolerated."

WTF????

oldwhitelady said...

However, your questions are good and worth thinking about!