Political scientist Steven Taylor, aka Poliblogger, has a superb, stand-back, take-a-deep-breath thoughtful piece pondering the meaning — and importance — of the controversial nuclear option compromise.
Read it in full. But we’ll look at some key points here.
Taylor notes that the discussion of the compromise over President Bush’s judicial nominees “misses the mark.” He writes:
First: the critics on both side (and especially on the right) seem to think that it is logically legitimate to compare the compromise to an idealized perfect outcome. Yes, any outcome compared to getting 100% of what one wants appears to be a bad deal. However, there were no guarantees that there were 51 votes (or even 50+Cheney) to allow for the “nuclear” option. Indeed, since 7 Reps signed on to this deal, it would seem that there were enough who weren’t convinced of the wisdom of that option that success was not a foregone conclusion.
In a sense Taylor is like the kid who pointed out that the emperor (perhaps) didn’t have clothes. There were rumblings by various politicos and journalists that the vote if had taken place might have been uncertain. Taylor is one of few to point this out as a political reality.
So he explains some realities to conservatives:
News to the Right: getting Owen, Pryor and Brown guaranteed is, in fact, a victory regardless of what happens to the others. News to the Left: as I keep saying: a conservative Republican President is going to appoint, and has the right to expect confirmation, of conservative judges. However, blocking some of those nominees is also a victory.
He notes that he supported the nuclear option because he felt the Demmies were abusing their veto powers. In that context, he writes, he felt the GOPers were right to look at clipping the filibuster’s wings. He also makes this interesting point:
Given the extreme version of both positions, it is hardly a surprise that a compromise was reached at the eleventh hour. I do think that a compromise would not have come about without the threat of the nuclear option-as such, Frist’s strategy did work to some degree. Indeed, the whole point of a threat of nuclear attack is to get the other side to back down, yes? Of course in real life, such backing down rarely results in 100% capitulation.
And then he points out ANOTHER truth (and you can tell you’re reading a professional political scientist here) — that neither party is monolithic:
This is not how the Senate works—and, indeed, not how the Congress works….The Senate is composed of 100 individuals who have the right to behave as they wish. They are not foot soldiers who are supposed to do what they are told.
And the other misunderstanding? The agreement itself (and we will bold face it because it is so intriguing):
It is not a treaty between Frist and Reid, or between ‘THE Republicans’ and THE “Democrats”—it is an agreement between swing voters on both sides of the aisle. The swing-voters on the Rep side are agreeing, for the moment, not to ‘go nuclear,’ and the swing-voters on the Dem side are agreeing, for the moment, to vote for cloture in a set number of cases and to be restrained in supporting filibusters for other nominees.
As such, we have largely simply gone back to the status quo ante: a situation in which the filibuster threat always existed, but was seen to be an extreme tool for this type of usage. Please note: this can all change if the swing-voters on the Rep side decide that the swing-voters on the Dem side aren’t holding up their end of the bargain. (Such is the nature of ‘swing’ votes).
Taylor further points out that now 6 democrats hold the power to sustain a filibuster. He predicts the continuation of raging rhetoric.
Generically, I see no problem with this compromise. It is a wholly legitimate action within the rules and procedures of the Senate (not to mention generic legislative behavior).
In short: if one side can’t get the votes to do something (in this case the Reps can’t get the votes for the nuclear option and the Dems can’t maintain the filibuster, at least in some key cases) then that something doesn’t happen. That is the way that legislatures work.
And those who wish to argue that the will of the majority in the Senate has been thwarted here are wrong: at the moment there is no majority on the overall way to deal with the filibuster in the Senate for judicial nominees, and hence nothing changes. Again: that is how legislatures work. As I said yesterday: welcome to democracy.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.