ConfirmThem

By AndrewHyman Posted in Fillibuster — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Hendrik Hertzberg, writing in the New Yorker, says that Democrats need not feel guilty about filibustering nominees, because the Senate Democrats actually represent more people than the Republicans do:

[T]he present Senate is the product of three elections, those of 2000, 2002, and 2004. In those elections, the total vote for Democratic senatorial candidates, winning and losing, was 99.7 million; for Republicans it was 97.3 million. The forty-four-person Senate Democratic minority, therefore, represents a two-million-plus popular majority---a circumstance that, unless acres trump people, is at variance with common-sense notions of democracy.

However, George Bush defeated John Kerry by a vote of 62 to 59 million, so --- if you're counting --- that means the Republicans actually represent more voters in this appointment process than do the Democrats. Assuming Hertzberg's Senate figures are correct, we could write instead:

The present Senate and Presidency are products of three elections, those of 2000, 2002, and 2004. In those Senate elections, plus the 2004 presidential election, the total vote for the Democratic candidates, winning and losing, was 158.7 million; for Republicans it was 159.3 million. The Democratic minority, therefore, represents a popular minority, but nevertheless seeks a veto over nominations---a circumstance that is at variance with common-sense notions of democracy.

Of course, the United States is not a pure democracy, and so the present crisis is really about constitutional and legal principles, rather than about numbers of voters. But by either standard, the present filibustering of judicial nominees is improper and unprecedented.