After months of excessive political obstructionism from Senate Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Democrats exercised the so-called “nuclear option” last week. The action was inevitable — the culmination of actions taken by a political party whose actions have transformed Congress into one of the least productive Congress’ in American history. Although the Democrat’s use of the nuclear option will change the future dynamics of the Senate, the new changes will largely be positive.
The media tries to portray political news stories objectively by presenting the views of members from both major political parties. By doing so, they insinuate both sides’ views are “reasonable.” But the simple fact of the matter is that, on many issues, the tactics of congressional Republicans are anything but reasonable. As Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, authors of “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,” wrote in a Washington Post op-ed, “The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”
Mann and Ornstein are emphatically correct, especially on the fact that the contemporary Republican Party is averse to compromise and pragmatism. Since 2007 (when the Republicans lost the majority in the Senate), the Republican Party has filibustered 332 times, including a record 112 filibusters during the 110th Congress. Not only have Senate Republicans filibustered President Obama’s domestic legislative proposals, they have also been especially active in filibustering Obama’s executive and judicial nominees. According to PolitiFact, “68 individual nominees [have been] blocked prior to Obama taking office and 79 (so far) during Obama’s term.”
This evidence demonstrates that Obama has had more of his nominees filibustered thus far in his presidency than all other presidents in American history. Yet, this is not the only evidence of historic political obstruction by Senate Republicans. Obama’s nominations for federal district court and circuit court judges (after getting approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee) have been delayed from getting a Senate confirmation vote, on average, more than four times longer than President George W. Bush’s nominees.
In addition, in an attempt to legitimize Republican opposition and filibustering of Obama’s proposed judicial nominees for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals (which is considered by many to be the second most powerful court in the nation), Senate Republicans, such as Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, argue, “In terms of raw numbers, the D.C. Circuit has the lowest number of total appeals filed annually among all the circuit courts of appeal.” This is strictly true, but extremely misleading. Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond law school said the D.C. Circuit handles many administrative agency cases, and “those administrative agency appeals can be exceedingly complex, with hundreds of parties and huge records that run to 50,000 pages. And they can take years to resolve.”
Against this backdrop of political obstruction (especially in the context of judicial nominees), Reid and his Democratic colleagues in the Senate decided to exercise the “constitutional (or so-called nuclear) option” in regards to most presidential nominations. Historically, members of the Senate in the political minority could prevent legislation from being enacted if they continually debated on the Senate floor. Slowly, reforms were enacted in the Senate to limit the power of the filibuster, with only 60 votes being required to defeat a filibuster. Although it took 60 votes to defeat a filibuster, the Senate can change its own rules by a majority vote. This is because the Constitution states, “Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings.”
Last week, the Senate majority voted to remove the 60-vote requirement to end a filibuster on presidential nominees (expect Supreme Court nominees). Now only a simple majority is needed to confirm a nominee.
The Senate had no other practical choice but to exercise the constitutional option. The Republican Party has filibustered Obama’s legislative proposals and executive nominees at historic rates. As a result, judicial and administrative vacancies continue to increase in number. To ensure that our national government functions adequately, it was necessary for the Senate to limit the minority’s obstructive power.
It is certainly true that the Democrats’ exercise of the constitutional option will have some negative effects. It will make Republicans less likely to compromise on legislation and Supreme Court nominees since they won’t have as much influence on other confirmations. At the same time, though, it will allow Obama (and future Presidents) to fill vacant positions in the judiciary and in agencies without excessive political obstruction.
Even though Republicans might increase their political obstruction on the legislative front, doing so will probably harm them in the next election. As Rep. Tom Cole, R-OK, has said, “Republicans need to understand that their political problems are neither tactical nor transitory. They are structural and demographic. The hard truth is the GOP coalition constitutes a shrinking portion of the electorate.” If Republicans want to win the next election, they must enact legislation that is supported by a large portion of the electorate, instead of filibustering such legislation.
Republicans in the Senate have engaged in a course of political obstructionism that has no parallel in American history. Whether it was Obama’s legislative proposals or presidential nominations, Senate Republicans were determined to filibuster them. Now, the Senate’s historic decision to exercise the constitutional option in regards to most presidential nominations will make our federal government function better by allowing the government to fill vacant positions without excessive political obstruction.
Aaron Loudenslager ([email protected]) is a second year law student.
