Cheney Supports Nuclear Option. Anyone Surprised?
In a story some news outlets seem to find a whole lot more surprising than it actually is, VP Cheney announced today that he will break a tie in the Senate in favor of the nuclear option if such an eventuality occurs. Speaking to the Republican National Lawyers Association, Cheney said "There is no justification for allowing the blocking of nominees who are well qualified and broadly supported. The tactics of the last few years, I believe, are inexcusable." Cheney said that he wanted to "emphasize" that any decision to go forward with the nuclear option will lie with the Republican leadership in the Senate (read "Frist, you better not wimp out on this").
New York's Charles Schumer, one of the leading nuclear option opponents in the Senate, said that Cheney's comments meant that the Adminstration "has stepped over the line by interfering with the Senate to reduce checks and balances. The White House has always wanted to reduce the Senate's power and the fact that Vice President Cheney is encouraging this abuse of power should strengthen the Senate's resolve to resist." (To be fair, it is important to recognize that unlike President Bush, Cheney as least does have some function in the whole question, since as presiding officer of the Senate he may well have to cast the deciding vote on the issue).
David Kirkpatrick at the New York Times reports that Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate Whip, said that the GOP has gathered enough votes to implement the nuclear option; Minority Leader Harry Reid responded that McConnell "is bluffing." The bluffing supposition may be borne out by the fact that Senate aides told Kirkpatrick that Frist "has decided to defer a fight over the rule change until at least after the May recess, postponing a confrontation that many had anticipated might occur as early as next week." Doesn't sound like the strategy of a team confident of a victory to me.
posted by JBD @ 8:58 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Have the Democrats threatened yet to filibuster the nuclear option?
Now that's a tactic of irony.
~Josh
JDB: Have you forgotten that the victor in nuclear war is the side that gets the other side to back down without dropping the bomb. Sabre rattling and swearing not to be the first to blink are standard tactics. So is “you’re bluffing!” I think Santorum’s move is simply a technique to set up an easy face-save in the event a decision is made not to drop the bomb. A lot of people are fed up with obstructionism (see “Daschle”) and will not tolerate it any more. What is the solution here that does not endorse obstructionism? By accepting the positioning of this issue as ‘arrogant majority rules’ versus ‘maintain checks and balances’ you are being a Democratic dupe. A realistic alternate statement of the issue here would be: in the cause of obstructionism, will the Democrats force the Republicans to do away with a valued check on the power of the (any) majority? Not quite as black and white when you position the issue that way, is it?
Here's the problem. The nuclear option would be triggered when, if a Democrat began a filibuster against one of the judges should their nomination be brought to the floor, a Republican senator made a "point of order" request.
That request would ask the presiding officer (most like Cheney acting in his capacity as president of the Senate) to rule a filibuster against judicial nominees "contrary to the rules of the Senate." Cheney would rule that indeed the filibuster is contrary to the rules of the Senate. A Democrat would then object to Cheney's ruling, and a vote would have to occur on the question of "whether to sustain the ruling from the chair." If that vote passed, the chair would be sustained and the filibuster would be ruled out of order.
This is the kicker. Filibusters or any other type of delay tactic are not allowed on points of order, so once the point of order is made, there has to be a ruling from the chair,and then a vote on that. Hence the end run around the filibuster (you can't block a vote on whether the filibuster is allowed if it comes up as a point of order).
This is all very arcane and I may have missed a step or two, but this is the basic chain reaction that would occur.
notherbob2 -
The Democrats aren't forcing the Republicans to do anything. As I've been saying for days, on both these judges and Bolton, if Bush would just nominate reasonable, non-extremist candidates for these positions, both Dems and moderate Republicans would be happy to support them without being forced into it (see the 205 federal judges already confirmed, along with John Negroponte, Gordon England, etc. etc. etc.)
It is not obstructionist to oppose unqualified and extremist candidates - it is good political sense.
I agree that the Santorum maneuver could be a face-saving move.
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