Current mood:	happy
Current music:	TMBG - Birdhouse In Your Soul

Filibuster Vigilantly

I've been very busy lately, so while I've had my eye on the judicial-nominee-filibuster-nuclear-option mess I have not been able to watch it as closely as I would like. The Moderate Voice has an exhaustive write-up on the recent bipartisan agreement to avoid changing Senate rules to ban the use of filibuster on judicial nominees. The Bull Moose also has some entertaining commentary on the subject.

In short, a few candidates will be gauranteed up/down votes (read: they will be confirmed), a few candidates will not get up/down votes, and senators retain the right to filibuster for "extraordinary circumstances".

My first reaction was to be mildly pleased. I say "mildly" because this is clearly only a temporary measure to avoid a showdown this week. With the uncompromising rhetoric coming from Frist and the White House I was surprised a deal was struck at all, and this takes a lot of wind out of their collective sails.

I was not surprised that John McCain (R-AZ) was a major player in this deal. Once again I find myself cheering for this career politician who is a hardline moderate. Once again I'm angered by the primary nonsense that kept him from being the Republican candidate in '00. What else can I say? He's one of the few politicians that makes me want to vote for him.

The Bush White House (predictably) was in favor of banning the filibuster for its nominees, and continues to insist all candidates deserve up/down votes (despite the fact that percentage-wise his nominees are not being blocked with more frequency than other recent presidents). Since President Bush was sworn in it has been "My way or the highway"--all or nothing divisiveness. Nothing new here, but this cannot be said often enough: The Bush Adminsitration is founded on polarization.

Senator Frist, who insisted on an end to the filibuster for judicial nominees, has taken a major political hit. He has lost credibility with the right and he has lost respect for his power with the center and left. It's too early to say his presidential bid ends here, but to see him scrambling for control pleases me.

The best news of all here is that hardline conservative interest groups are as angry at the failure of their hardline Senators as they are at the moderate Republicans who struck the deal.

Ultimately this is really about the Supreme Court. The filibuster remains an option for Supreme Court nominees, and that--at least in the short term--is a big win for democracy. Anyone who says otherwise has forgotten what it is like to be the minority party.

All in all, 14 out of 100 Senators isn't as many as I would like--but for today, it is enough.