The "Nuclear Option"
Mar. 27th, 2005 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shavastakI recieved an email yesterday from MoveOn.org telling me to write a letter to the editor of my local paper decrying the Republicans' threat to use the so-called Nuclear Option.
For those who have paid less attention than I to politics of late, here's the deal. Judicial nominees have to be approved by the Senate. It only takes a majority (or 51) votes to do this. The party in the minority has the option, if a nominee comes up that really really sucks, to fillibuster that nomination. I.E. debate the nomination until it dies for time reasons. The Democrats have fillibustered a fair number of Bush's judicial nominees these last couple terms, because frankly, they're bastards. One of them, for example, said he thought women were placed on the earth by God to be subject to their men. (Perhaps a fair position in the laws of some churches, but it doesn't agree with the laws of this country.) To put this in perspective, the Dems have approved over 100 of Bush's nominees, and there are something like a dozen that got fillibustered last term that Bush re-submitted and that the Dems are threatening to fillibuster again.
The Republicans have at their disposal the aforesaid Nuclear Option. They can vote through, with 51 votes, a resolution removing the rules allowing fillibusters of judicial nominees, and forcing straight votes every time. Doing this would win them the disgust of the nation and about a dozen judicial nominees.
If they want to use this Nuclear Option, I say bring it on! Why? Well, a fair few of them are up for reelection in 2006. When the Dems have control of the Senate again, the Republicans will have to eat their own words. They'd really be shooting themselves in the foot with this one, and I say, let it happen.
For those who have paid less attention than I to politics of late, here's the deal. Judicial nominees have to be approved by the Senate. It only takes a majority (or 51) votes to do this. The party in the minority has the option, if a nominee comes up that really really sucks, to fillibuster that nomination. I.E. debate the nomination until it dies for time reasons. The Democrats have fillibustered a fair number of Bush's judicial nominees these last couple terms, because frankly, they're bastards. One of them, for example, said he thought women were placed on the earth by God to be subject to their men. (Perhaps a fair position in the laws of some churches, but it doesn't agree with the laws of this country.) To put this in perspective, the Dems have approved over 100 of Bush's nominees, and there are something like a dozen that got fillibustered last term that Bush re-submitted and that the Dems are threatening to fillibuster again.
The Republicans have at their disposal the aforesaid Nuclear Option. They can vote through, with 51 votes, a resolution removing the rules allowing fillibusters of judicial nominees, and forcing straight votes every time. Doing this would win them the disgust of the nation and about a dozen judicial nominees.
If they want to use this Nuclear Option, I say bring it on! Why? Well, a fair few of them are up for reelection in 2006. When the Dems have control of the Senate again, the Republicans will have to eat their own words. They'd really be shooting themselves in the foot with this one, and I say, let it happen.
