‘Nuclear option’ still on the table

So what’s a few judicial nominees out of 200? Plenty, to Republicans. They believe that the Senate Democrats’ use of the filibuster to prevent a few of President Bush’s judicial nominees from being confirmed amouonts to a violation of the Constitution’s defined role of Congress to provide “advice and consent” on judicial nominees.

There are few Senate precedents for filibusters being used to prevent judicial nominations from being confirmed, though Democrats point to Republicans’ blocking President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s nomination of Abe Fortas as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court back in the 1960s using the same methods.

Democrats also argue that Republicans used their majority in power in Congress in the 1990s to block far more of President Clinton’s judicial nominees.

Granted, Democrats aren’t in the majority anymore, but it’s hard to find a convincing argument that it’s worth getting rid of the filibuster – what Republicans call the “nuclear option” – entirely for the sake of a narrow-minded goal.

This wouldn’t be the first time Republicans changed overarching rules for the convenience of the moment. Ethics rules have gone on the chopping block in the House to prevent Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Tx.) from having to resign if he were ever indicted of a crime (the rule was restored after public outcry).

“Amend for Arnold,” too, has sprung up to get rid of the inconvenient fact that the Constitution requires someone to have been born in the United States to become president – the lone qualification preventing Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from running for president (never mind that Alexander Hamilton suffered the same fate without objection).

The filibuster, on the other hand, is a tradition as old as the Senate itself. It has always been a tool for the minority to express its objection over egregious legislative measures, and in this case judicial nominees.

Though any one party may hold a majority for a certain amount of time, judicial appointments for a lifetime, so it makes sense that both parties ought to have input into the process. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has expressed oppositon to the nuclear option, saying that he would only support if he “believed that [Republicans] would be in the majority forever.”

Ending the filibuster would also set a bad precedent, suggesting that we can change long-standing traditions for the sake of achieving a temporary goal. Even the recent Congressional intervention on behalf of Terri Schiavo – a clear example of an ex-post facto law – suggests that Republicans are increasingly willing to forgo long-standing rules in the name of temporary political gain.

Our country is one that is based upon the rule of law, and if we start changing laws to accomplish increasingly narrow goals, the very future of our republic is at stake. When asked at the Constitutional Convention what type of government we had, Benjamin Franklin said, “a republic, if you can keep it.”

The more Republicans – or anyone else – start bending the rules the moment they become inconvenient, the less of a basis we have for our very system of government.