ConfirmThem

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

55% of Republican voters see through the pollsters' slanted questions, and support putting an end to the unprecedented use of perpetual filibusters of judicial nominees. Here's the slanted Newsweek question:

U.S. Senate rules allow 41 Senators to mount a filibuster -- refusing to end debate and agree to vote -- to block judicial nominees. In the past, this tactic has been used by both Democrats and Republicans to prevent certain judicial nominees from being confirmed. Senate Republican leaders, whose party is now in the majority, want to take away this tactic by changing the rules to require only 51 votes, instead of 60, to break a filibuster. Would you approve or disapprove of changing Senate rules to take away the filibuster and allow all of George W. Bush's judicial nominees to get voted on by the Senate?

Despite the obvious bias built into this question, 55% of Republicans said "yes" and only 33% said "no." Just imagine how many more people would have responded affirmatively if the question had instead been this:

Would you approve or disapprove of putting some time limit on filibusters so that every presidents' judicial nominees can eventually get voted on by the Senate?

And imagine what the response would have been if Newsweek had given truthful background information. In the past, this filibuster tactic has been used by SOME Democrats and Republicans to TRY preventing certain judicial nominees from being confirmed, but never before until now have enough Senators actually supported this kind of thing so that the tactic would clearly be successful. It's unclear whether the Fortas nomination in 1968 would have succeeded if the cloture vote had instead been an up-or-down vote.

Shame on Newsweek. For more accurate poll results, see here.