At 12:48 today by a 52-48 vote, the Senate changed filibuster rules, now requiring only a simple majority vote to end filibuster of certain executive and judicial nominees. This change ended the requirement for 60 votes — 3/5 of the Senate — to end a filibuster on administration executive and judicial appointees, but will not affect any Supreme Court nominations, where 60 votes will still be needed to approve Supreme Court justice nominees.
As pedestrian and simple a news story as a person jumping over a low bar, today’s small procedural change in the way the Senate does business is a momentous change in how our republic operates. Since 2009 when Barack Obama became President, the obstruction of executive branch nominees to fill positions in key federal agencies has been unprecedented, as evidenced in the chart shown.
You might say what happened today has a Pholus-like feel: small event, big repercussions, like the push on the button that detonates a bomb. No wonder the filibuster rule change when first introduced in the earlier part of the last decade was nicknamed the “nuclear option.”
George W. Bush certainly did not worry about having his judicial appointees blocked. Even then the Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened a nuclear option when the then-minority Democrats were objecting to some of Bush’s appointees. But today we are in the era where the very structure of government is being challenged to the death. Daily.
We’ve seen this already, time and again, most recently with the House Republicans instigating the shutdown that closed down the government in October. Today, it’s exemplified by Harry Reid’s Democrats taking the nuclear option to the Senate’s time honored filibuster.
The filibuster was once a means to give the minority party a voice in decision-making, particularly the Senate’s advise and consent role in approving Presidential nominees for cabinet and judicial positions. However, consent has rarely been given for the Obama Administration, particularly judicial nominees, and the ongoing obstruction by minority party is severe enough to make you think there was no re-election of the President in 2012.