Senate Democrats pushed through a controversial rules change known as the "nuclear option."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., answers questions from reporters following the weekly policy lunch of the Democratic caucus on Nov. 19. (Photo: Win McNamee, Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pushed
through a controversial change to Senate rules Thursday that will make
it easier to approve President Obama's executive and judicial branch
nominees.
Fifty-two Senate Democrats voted with Reid to reduce the
threshold from 60 votes to 51 votes to approve executive and judicial
nominees against unanimous GOP opposition. Three Democrats, Sens. Mark
Pryor of Arkansas, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Carl Levin of
Michigan, opposed the change.
The rules change does not apply to
Supreme Court nominees, who are still subject to a 60-vote filibuster
threshold, or to legislation.
"The American people believe
Congress is broken. The American people believe the Senate is broken.
And I believe they are right," Reid said Thursday on the Senate floor.
"The need for change is so very, very obvious."
The turning point
in this latest showdown was Republicans' decision to block all three of
Obama's latest nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit, the nation's second most powerful court with vast
jurisdiction over federal agencies and regulations. STORY: First Take: Could partisanship get worse? It just did
The
court currently has four judges appointed by Republican presidents and
four by Democrats, with three vacancies. But six "senior" judges, five
of them Republican nominees, tilt the court to the right. Republicans
claim no more judges are needed, so they have based their opposition on
workload, not the qualifications of Patricia Millett, Nina Pillard and
Robert Wilkins.
Democrats control the Senate 55-45, but the
majority is at stake in the 2014 elections. Republicans warned that it
would not only tear apart cross-party relationships in the Senate, but
it will come back to haunt Democrats if they return to the minority.
"You will no doubt come to regret this, and you may regret it a lot
sooner than you think," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.,
warned Democrats.
Only 22 Democrats have ever served in the minority. Vice President Joe Biden, who opposed a similar rules change as a senator, said Thursday that he supports Reid's decision.
The
move is informally referred to as the "nuclear option" because it blows
up long-standing Senate procedure and protection of minority rights. It
would be the most far-reaching change to filibuster rules since 1975,
when senators eased the two-thirds requirement for ending filibusters to
today's three-fifths requirement of 60 votes.
Progressive groups
cheered Reid's move. "This was not a decision made easily or taken
lightly. There was no choice. The Republican minority had turned the
existing rules into weapons of mass obstruction," said Alliance for
Justice President Nan Aron.
Conservative groups said it would
undermine minority rights in Congress. "For Harry Reid and President
Obama, this is not about a couple circuit court judges; this is an
attempt to remake America to reflect their unworkable and unpopular
progressive vision," said Michael Needham of Heritage Action, which
urged senators to oppose the rules change if it comes to a vote. "If
Reid and his colleagues continue down this path, they will set a
precedent that fundamentally alters the role of the minority in American
politics." Contributing: Associated Press
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called for a Senate rules change
Wednesday, calling GOP shutouts of President Barack Obama's judicial
nominees "naked attempts to nullify the results of the last
presidential election."
Warren blasted her Republican colleagues on the Senate floor for their filibuster of Nina Pillard, the third of Obama's nominees to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to have her confirmation stalled.
"If Republicans continue to filibuster these highly qualified
nominees for no reason other than to nullify the President's
constitutional authority, then senators not only have the right to
change the filibuster rules, senators have a duty to change the
filibuster rules," Warren said.
The freshman senator also turned the "court-packing" allegation leveled
against President Barack Obama by the GOP on its head, accusing Senate
Republicans of attempting to "rig" the lower court in favor of business
interests.
"In the next five years, the D.C. Circuit will decide some of the
most important cases of our time," she said, "including cases that will
decide whether Wall Street reform will have real bite or whether it will
just be toothless … These big industry players want business-friendly
judges to help them out."
Warren struck that same populist chord in September when she warned of
what she called "pro-corporate" trend in the Supreme Court, citing an
academic study that counted the five conservative-minded judges
currently sitting on the high court among the top 10 pro-corporate
justices in a half century.
[h/t Huffington Post] Correction: This post has been updated to reflect that Nina
Pillard was the third of Obama's nominees to the D.C. Circuit to be
blocked by Senate Republicans.
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA):
“Every judge nominated by this president or any president deserves an
up-or-down vote. It’s the responsibility of the Senate. The Constitution
requires it.”
Tom Coburn (R-OK): “If you look at the
Constitution, it says the president is to nominate these people, and
the Senate is to advise and consent. That means you got to have a vote
if they come out of committee. And that happened for 200 years.”
John Cornyn (R-TX): “We have a Democratic leader
defeated, in part, as I said, because I believe he was identified with
this obstructionist practice, this unconstitutional use of the
filibuster to deny the president his judicial nominations.
Mike Crapo (R-ID): “Until this Congress, not one of
the President’s nominees has been successfully filibustered in the
Senate of the United States because of the understanding of the fact
that the Constitution gives the President the right to a vote.”
Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “I think filibustering judges will destroy the judiciary over time. I think it’s unconstitutional”
Chuck Grassley (R-IA): “It would be a real
constitutional crisis if we up the confirmation of judges from 51 to
60, and that’s essentially what we’d be doing if the Democrats were
going to filibuster.”
Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “The Constitution of the
United States is at stake. Article II, Section 2 clearly provides that
the President, and the President alone, nominates judges. The Senate
is empowered to give advice and consent. But my Democratic colleagues
want to change the rules. They want to reinterpret the Constitution to
require a supermajority for confirmation.”
Jeff Sessions (R- AL): “[The Constitution] says the
Senate shall advise and consent on treaties by a two-thirds vote, and
simply ‘shall advise and consent’ on nominations…. I think there is no
doubt the Founders understood that to mean … confirmation of a judicial
nomination requires only a simple majority vote.”
Richard Shelby (R-AL): “Why not allow the
President to do his job of selecting judicial nominees and let us do
our job in confirming or denying them? Principles of fairness call for
it and the Constitution requires it.”
John Thune (SD): Filibustering judicial
nominees “is contrary to our Constitution …. It was the Founders’
intention that the Senate dispose of them with a simple majority vote.”
Jeff Gillan continues his conversation with Sen. Harry Reid (via Repost Video News)
