I read OpinionJournal's opinion on Why Republicans can't let the judicial filibuster succeed.
Barring a surprise last-minute deal, this week Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will ask for a ruling from the chair--Vice President Dick Cheney presiding--that ending debate on a judicial nominee requires a vote of a simple majority of 51 Senators, not a super-majority of 60. The nuclear option--aka the "constitutional option"--will have been detonated. Judicial filibusters, R.I.P.
Okay, first of all, "judicial filibusters" are not a special case. If there is debate taking place on the floor of the Senate, each Senator is entitled to speak to the issue without interruption until done. That the topic is whether to consent to an appointment is beside the point.
Senator Frist will be asking the Vice President to change the cloture rule by fiat. This plainly cannot be done under the standing rules of the Senate. To describe this as a coup would not be an overstatement (so phrased to maintain deniability in case they get away with it).
The judicial filibuster of the last two years marks another political escalation--this time twisting a procedure used historically for the most important legislative debates into an abuse of the Senate's advise-and-consent responsibility.
Fiery rhetoric.
You know, the whole "it's never been done before" thing is just wimpy. I mean, suppose we never did anything that hasn't been done before? The rules of the House of Representatives had never been manipulated to exclude the minority party as entirely as possible before. States never redrew their congressional district boundaries between censuses...explicitly for political gain, by the way.
And how many times has a rejected judicial nominee been resubmitted?
It isn't just one nominee they object to; it's 10, and counting. It isn't just abortion they're worried about but the entire range of constitutional law.
Yes, ten out of 229. Less than five percent.
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