Revisit Judicial Filibusters After an Election Cycle

To the editors:

Re “Hypocrisy in the ‘Nuclear’ War,” Dissenting comment, Apr. 26, by John Hastrup:

Hastrup takes what is called the “Dover Beach” approach to the current Senate debate over the President’s right-wing judicial nominees: high mindedly pronounce both sides at fault, and tell one, the Democrats, to surrender (“end an unjust war and take the high moral ground”). The issue is really not one of principle, but of simple fairness. Having gone out of their way to obstruct in unprecedented fashion President Clinton’s judicial nominations in committee for eight years, Republicans are now determined to fill many of the judicial slots thus kept vacant with their own nominees. If allowing an up or down vote of the full Senate on judicial nominees is the time-honored rule, why is systematic obstruction within committee any more democratic than filibustering a nominee on the floor?

The real point isn’t that the filibuster is right or wrong on principle, it’s that the proposed rule change is being made by one party on its spin of the electoral wheel—in regard to irrevocable, life-time appointments. Parliamentary systems get along just fine without filibusters; our mixed federal system allows them. A fair way to end the impasse would be to agree to an up or down vote prospectively, after the 2008 presidential election or the 2010 senatorial election (when all the current Senate seats will have been re-elected). That way, a new president or senate can fight elections on the issue and let a majority of the voters decide.

JOEL BERNARD

Portland, Ore.

April 26, 2005