ConfirmThem

By AndrewHyman Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Mickey Kaus summarizes a lot of recent blogosphere discussion about forcing a 24/7 filibuster on judicial nominations. Senator Frist's office recently put out a paper titled, “Senate Procedure 101: Why Not Go 24/7 on Judges?" which seeks to explain why that option is not being enthusiastically pursued.

I certainly hope that the "powers that be" will keep the 24/7 option in the wings, in case the primary approach doesn't work out, which I hope and expect it will. If the 24/7 approach becomes necessary, a Congressional Research Service Report has already given its blessing to two techniques for making the 24/7 strategy more effective: enforce the two speech rule and ban dilatory quorum calls (see pages 9-10 of the CRS Report).

Anyway, the primary verson of the "constitutional option" still seems to be to siimply set a new precedent that filibustering a judicial nominee is "dilatory." I'm glad that VP Cheney would be in the chair for that occasion, because Senate Rule 19 forbids other Senators from interrupting a filibuster.

As I mentioned in a post this morning, recent blogosphere discussion of filibusters includes Hugh Hewitt on Hagel, plus Hugh on Terry Neal in WaPo, plus Patterico on Greenberg in LA Times (updated here), plus Pejmanesque on Greenberg in LA Times. Also, David Bernstein defends Janice Rogers Brown at the Volokh conspiracy.