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Our founding fathers never intended for American Democracy to turn into a tyranny of the majority, and the fillibuster has been instrumental in preventing this throughout the history of this country. I applaude the moderates in the Senate for making this deal and preventing what would have been a horrible blow to democracy.
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Such overblown drama and abuse of history.
There is no mention whatsoever of the filibuster or judicial filibuster in the Constitution. One would think that if it was so vitally important, the founders would've indeed added it.
In fact, the Constitution is very clear where supermajority's are needed and the confirmation of judges is not one of those instances.
There is nothing in the Constitution that allows the minority to block a presidential appointments. All the Constitution requires is a simple majority of Senators in favor to confirm an appointee.
In regards to "tyranny of the majority" you are referring to, the point of having the Senate, to prevent big states from ruling over small states, giving the small states an equal footing with the big ones.
The use of judicial filibusters is now a Democrat abusive practice that has not occurred in the history of our republic. Bush has the lowest confirmation rate of any Presidents in regards to Appellate court nominees as a result of this abuse by the Democrats.
The judicial filibuster has had very little role in our history.
Of course all the leftists will chime in with Abe Fortas.
Indeed, Abe fortas was filibustered but he was filibustered in a bipartisan manner stemming from corruption charges. Again, different from the current partisan manner employed by Democrats.
So we have the judicial filibuster being used once in the first 212 years of our Republic.
And now we have the judicial filibuster being used 18 times, affecting 10 nominees, in the past 4 years of our Republic.
To make it easy for our liberal readers;
The first 212 years, 1 filibuster.
The last 4 years, 18 filibusters.
Figure it out.
There is no longstanding tradition of the judicial filibuster and to eliminate it would have no detrimental effect since it has not been a longstanding tradition that has been used in our history.
The House of Representatives, at one time, had a silent filibuster in which the Democrats abused. The rule was changed and the silent filibuster was eliminated.
No harm was done.
Robert (KKK) Byrd when majority leader in the Senate changed Senate Rules on 4 separate occaisions.
The Republic didn't suffer.
The
Democrats changed Senate rules in 1975, reducing the number of Senators needed to over-ride a filibuster, from 67 to 60.
The Country didn't perish.
Actually, all rule changes in regards to the filibuster, have occurred when Democrats were in charge of the Senate. Where are the outraged Democrats?
BTW, the elimination of the the judicial filibuster has no bearing on the legislative filibuster which is indeed a longstanding practice and tradition in the Senate.
Apparently for leftists, it's quite OK for Democrats to change Senate rules but not Republicans.