Reid Will Oppose Roberts

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced this afternoon that he will vote to oppose the confirmation of John Roberts to be Chief Justice. Based on Reid's voting record, this is sort of surprising - but based on the flack he would get from liberal interest groups and activists if he had supported the nomination, it's really not too much of a shock.

Meanwhile, two other Democrats (Montana's Max Baucus and Nebraska's Ben Nelson) indicated that they will vote to confirm Roberts. Baucus said today "After reviewing Judge John Roberts' credentials and meeting with him privately, I have found that he meets my criteria for judges. And that is: only the brightest, most objective minds shall serve on the bench."

Interest groups on the left are working hard to push up the number of "no" votes on Roberts, apparently as some sort of "message" to the president that he will have a harder time submitting a more ideological nominee for the second vacancy he has to fill. On this point, I agree wholeheartedly with my compatriot The Bull Moose:

"Probably, the majority of the Democratic Senators will oppose Roberts. That is tactically unfortunate because their opposition will have less resonance if the President truly nominates an extremist for the O'Connor vacancy - the donkey crying wolf syndrome. Is the Democratic Party merely the sum of its interest groups? It is not unlikely that a large number of Democrats prefer controversial issues such as gay marriage and the pledge of allegiance to be resolved in the legislative process rather than be circumvented by judicial fiat.

Sometimes, an opposition has to dare to say 'yea.'"

I'm sorry that Senator Reid made the decision he did. I think that it sends exactly the opposite message than he intends it to, and I hope other Democratic senators follow the Baucus-Nelson route. Of course I also hope the president doesn't nominate an ideological extremist for the second seat - but I don't believe making the Roberts vote "as close as possible" is the way to avoid that possibility.