ConfirmThem

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

From Meet the Press today:

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to federal judges. Court of Appeals: Bill Clinton nominated 51 people to the Court of Appeals. Thirty-five were confirmed. Sixteen were blocked by the Republicans by not giving hearings or not allowed out of committee. George Bush nominated 52. Thirty-five were confirmed because the Democrats threatened filibuster. They don't run the committees, so they can't block it in committee. What's the difference?

SEN. ALLEN: I think you'll find on the Circuit Court judges that President Bush has the lowest percentage of Circuit Court judges...

MR. RUSSERT: I just gave you the numbers. Clinton nominated 51; 35 were confirmed. Bush nominated 52; 35 were confirmed. Those are the numbers.

SEN. ALLEN: Well, I have different numbers than that.

The correct numbers can be found here. Clinton's first term confirmation rate was 71.4%, and for both Clinton terms combined it was 61.3%. W's first term confirmation rate was 52.2%. It makes most sense to compare the two presidents' first terms, because those are the terms during which control of the Senate changed midway.

Russert's question asked what the difference is between blocking a nomination in committee and filibustering it on the floor. Obviously, there is a world of difference. It's like asking what the difference is between night and day.

[T]here’s a difference between the use of the filibuster to derail a nomination and the use of other Senate rules — on scheduling, on not having a floor vote without prior committee action, etc. — to do so. All those other rules . . . can be overridden by a majority vote of the Senate . . . whereas the filibuster can’t be overridden in that way.

This quotation comes from an exchange on a listserv for constitutional law professors; a liberal law professor, Mark Tushnet, was responding to an argument that filibusters were no different from such procedures as allowing committee chairs to hold nominations back from committee votes. Tushnet was correctly pointing out that there is indeed a huge difference.

I'm starting to get a clear picture in my head of what the next presidential election is going to be like. The GOP candidate will be the clear winner, and Tim Russert will ask the winner: "Why should you take office? Al Gore got more votes in 2000, but he was blocked from taking office. Why shouldn't we block you too? What's the difference?"

UPDATE: Please see comments, for further discussion of whether or not Russert's numbers are correct, and whether or not the numbers that I've mentioned are correct.