Here is an interesting graph from ThinkProgress:
It is the number of cloture votes taken in the Senate since the 86th Congress, back in the 50s. It demonstrates conclusively that Harry Reid’s oft repeated statement that it takes 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate, if true, has only recently become true. And it demonstrates, again conclusively, that the current crop of Republicans has accelerated the trend to the point of absurdity.
The Republicans are currently planning on filibustering the nomination of a candidate to head the Office of Legal Counsel because she had the temerity to criticize the spurious legal rationale for torture and other Bush era abuses that everyone agrees deserved that criticism. We can expect that every major Obama initiative will be threatened by a filibuster, meaning that each and every one, in order to pass Harry Reid’s Senate, will be watered down so badly that it will have no chance to succeed.
Reid throws up his hands and insists there’s nothing he can do. But in fact, his Republican colleagues have shown him the way. What did the Democrats do in the face of Republican threats to “go nuclear” when the Republicans were in the minority? They “compromised”, bargaining away their own practical right to filibuster Bush judicial nominees in favor of preserving a theoretical right to do so, so long (as the Clash would say) they weren’t “dumb enough to actually try it”. The compromise was a win-win for Republicans, knowing as they did that the Democrats would never have the nerve to reply in kind should the tables turn.
A prescient blogger (me) said this at the time:
Speaking of the filibuster, the Democrats should take the bull by the horns right now. Since they’re not going to use it, they should offer to make the Republican position explicit: that is, change the Senate rules to make it clear that a judicial nomination cannot be filibustered. Because I can guarantee you, come 2008, the Republicans will filibuster every judicial nomination they don’t like, and they’ll be calling it a constitutionally sancrosanct maneuver. And the Democrats won’t have the nerve to go nuclear. So do it now. The Democrats have managed to turn the filibuster into a tool only the right wing can use. At the very least, take it away from them while they have no choice but to agree. And who knows, putting it to them like that might make them give a thought or two to 2008 and beyond. They’re not looking as good now as they were six months ago, and they no longer can count on the permanent majority they thought they had.
Of course, it really didn’t take much prescience. It was obvious to anyone with a brain.
Here’s hoping, but not expecting, that Obama will invite Reid down to the White House and tell him to start playing some hardball. There are theoretical justifications, as the Republicans argued, for abolishing the filibuster. This once rarely used device was never intended to be an everyday, throwaway procedure. If the Republicans want to keep it, they should have to accept that it is to be rarely used. Otherwise, the Democrats should abolish it using the Republicans’ own rationale. It is a theoretical abomination and, at the moment, a clear and present danger to the survival of the Republic.
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