Reid My Lips, No Compromise By Matt Margolis

26 Apr, 2005 by John Hawkins

Print this article Font size -16+

Senate Democrats have made a sudden shift in tactics over judicial filibusters. It is no coincidence that just as it is reported that Republicans have the votes to ban judicial filibusters that the Democrats suddenly want to compromise.

As we reported earlier, David Broder suggest a “compromise” in his column in the Washington Post: all seven of Bush’s nominees get up-or-down votes, but Bush has to promise not to make any recess appointments.

Joe Biden proposed a “compromise” on ABC’s “This Week,” that the Senate Democrats would allow five out of the seven judges Bush re-nominated to get up-or-down votes.

Harry Reid is also talking “compromise.” He proposes that only two of Bush’s nominees are given votes, in exchange for the Republicans to drop threats of banning judicial filibusters.

All of these so-called compromises are bad. From Broder’s column (likely to be the source of the compromise idea to the Senate Democrats), to Biden, to Reid, we go from all seven, to five, to just two.

They are offering to compromise because they know they are going to lose. Bush can get all of his nominees to have their up-or-down votes without any compromise. Biden and Reid have not offered any real compromises. They want the Republicans to give up on banning the judicial filibuster, in exchange for a small number of judges… Why?

They want this compromise to leave them the opportunity to block any judge Bush might nominate to the Supreme Court. Reid and Biden never said they’d stop threatening to filibuster other nominees by President Bush. They want to give him two, or five of his nominees, dump the rest, get the Republicans to drop attempts to ban the judicial filibuster, all the while they still can use the filibuster on any other judge Bush might nominate through the rest of his second term?

Not going to happen.

We’ve got the Democrats cornered. We can get all of Bush’s nominees—the ones in limbo right now and all future ones, including a nominee for the Supreme Court—without agreeing to the Democrats lousy compromises.

This content was used with the permission of Blogs For Bush.