1) Judicial filibuster had been done before, in 1968 (give or take a year i cant remember) on Abe Fortas by Republicans (and some Democrats, it was bipartisan). Republicans now try to say that wasn't a true filibuster because he had lost "majority support" but that makes no sense since 1) why would you need a filibuster if it didnt have majority support and 2) it doesn't matter if it had majority support, it still confirms that filibusters are a legitimate use of power against judicial nominees
2) Why should only Judicial nominees be guarenteed a up or down vote without any real debate when limited term positions like members of cabinet don't get an auto yes or no vote? That makes no sense, if your gonna remove the filibuster, remove it for all appointees by the president.
3) Judicial obstructionism has always existed and up or down votes have NEVER been guarenteed. During Clinton's administration, 60+ judicial nominees were held up in commitee or not even given a hearing. Even assuming they didn't have majority support, if every judge is guarenteed an up or down vote, then why werent they allowed to the floor for a vote? Even more so, if commitee's are allowed to examine the nominee, then that assumes that congress does play a role in determining if the nominee is worthy of being affirmed, so filibusters should be allowed here as well just like any other Senate decision
4) Some people go as far to say that filibusters are just wrong because they put too much power in the minority or one person.. this is inherintly wrong because filibusters are used on ALL other things so even insinuating that argument means you don't agree with the filibuster in general. If so, then you should be advocating the complete removal of filibusters and thus complete majority rule, rather than nitpicking at what type of filibuster you don't want.
It's really not that hard to examine the hypocracy and flaws in the Republican argument for filibusters, yet Democrats are seemingly so useless they can't even do it correctly and strongly.
This post has been edited by Renegade: 21 May 2005 - 05:15 AM