Senator Schumer must think New Yorkers are a bunch of idiots.
Apparently, so must all the Democratic senators who are going
ballistic over the possibility of a nuclear option over the
filibustering tactic that Mr. Schumer's been using to block
certain nominees to the federal courts.
In an April 7 press conference, Mr. Schumer said: "Well,
today we saw the heart and soul of the nuclear option. In other
words, who was pushing for it. It's a bunch of extreme fringe
ideological groups who want to take America back to the 1930s or
the 1890s."
Extreme fringe ideological groups? My goodness! What exactly did
our senior senator mean?
He explained further: "And they came together today. They
revealed themselves. The meeting today was under the umbrella of
the Judeo-Christian Council on Constitutional Restoration but
included such extreme groups as the Texas Justice Foundation, the
Free Congress Foundation, the Eagle Forum."
Basically Mr. Schumer is saying that any group that is pro-family
and promotes Judeo-Christian values is extreme. He is not,
however, explaining what's actually behind the entire filibuster
controversy.
Here's what Mr. Schumer is glossing over: For 214 years,
presidential judicial nominees needed only a majority vote to
provide the advice and consent in the Constitution. Four years
ago, the Senate Democrats insisted they be allowed to filibuster,
increasing the vote threshold to 60 votes for President Bush's
nominees.
This is important: The Republicans are not speaking about
eliminating the filibuster for legislation. They are asking for a
return to the tradition of allowing an up or down vote by our
elected representatives for judicial nominations.
Yet somehow Mr. Schumer is asserting that to do so is
undemocratic. Not allowing a vote by those whom we elected to
represent us in the Senate is exactly that.
There may have been a time when we, the voters, assumed that our
congressional leaders spoke of the facts, but since the dawn of
the Internet those days are long gone. The truth is now in the
broadband and it's impossible to hide the details.
So what exactly is the nuclear option and when did it start
scaring the daylights out of the Democrats? It's a rarely used
parliamentary procedure that requires just 51 votes to break a
filibuster and force a final vote on a judicial nomination.
Democrats object to its use because they claim that it would end
the Senate tradition of collegiality and paralyze the chamber
with partisanship. (Smile.)
The idea for implementing such a motion probably originated with
an Internet posting on a conservative Web site written in 2003 by
the author of "Back to Basics for the Republican
Party," Michael Zak, who has done extensive research on the
GOP's historical support for civil rights. The article brought
Mr. Zak to the attention of the director of outreach at the
Senate Policy Committee, Barbara Ledeen. Mr. Zak later explained
his idea to a policy adviser in the office of the Senate majority
leader, Senator Frist of Tennessee.
Mr. Zak also sent his option idea by e-mail to several key Senate
staff members. In his proposal, Mr. Zak mentions the name of
William Crum. He was a black man nominated five times by
President Theodore Roosevelt for a federal post in South
Carolina. The Democrats continually blocked his appointment, but
Roosevelt finally succeeded by making him a recess appointment.
Senator Hatch, the Utah Republican, mentioned that interesting
historical tidbit on the Senate floor, but it never made it into
the mainstream press.
Mr. Zak reminded the Republican leaders that Vice President Nixon
tried to get the 1957 Civil Rights Act passed by bringing it
directly to the Senate floor. Unfortunately, it was a Democratic
Congress and the Republicans were outvoted. Mr. Zak suggested
that Vice President Cheney bring the judicial nominations
directly to the Senate and announce that a majority vote would be
all that is necessary for them to be confirmed.
Mr. Schumer has been trying to convince us that it's the
Republicans who are being obstructionists, but the Democrats have
a long history of blocking the federal nominations of worthy
persons of color. Every time Mr. Schumer brings up the
appropriateness of the filibuster, the Republicans need to slam
home a reminder that a former Klansman, Senator Byrd of West
Virginia, used a filibuster against the Civil Rights Act for 14
straight hours before it came to a vote. The other chief
opponents of the bill were Senators Ervin, of Watergate fame, and
Albert Gore Sr.
In the past, that sort of information would be buried, but thanks
to the Internet and individuals like Michael Zak
(www.lincolnreaganfoundation.org), it's going to be harder for
Mr. Schumer to pull the wool over our eyes.