[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 95 (Wednesday, June 23, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5312-S5315]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              SECRET HOLDS

  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. President, the Senate Rules Committee 
held another important hearing today to review yet another example of 
how the Senate rules are abused. I want to thank Chairman Schumer again 
for holding these hearings--they have been

[[Page S5313]]

invaluable in exploring ways to make the Senate work better for our 
country.
  Over the past few months during this series of hearings, we have 
discussed and debated example after example of how the filibuster in 
particular--and the Senate's incapacitating rules in general--too often 
stand in the way of achieving real progress for the American people.
  Today's hearing topic--secret holds and the confirmation process--was 
just one more example of how manipulation of the rules continues to 
foster a level of gridlock and obstruction unlike any we have seen 
before.
  Senators Wyden, Grassley, and McCaskill testified at the hearing 
about their efforts to end the practice of secret holds. I applaud 
their work and dedication to transparency in government. Their fight to 
end the practice of secret holds is a worthy one that I wholeheartedly 
support.
  Earlier this year I was proud to sign on to Senator McCaskill's 
letter to the majority and minority leaders, in which we pledged to no 
longer place anonymous holds and asked for Senate leadership to end the 
practice altogether.
  At today's hearing, Senator McCaskill said that she has gathered 
enough support to surpass the 67-vote threshold required to consider 
and amend the Senate rules. That is no small task, as everyone in the 
Senate would attest. She should be congratulated for her work, as 
should all of our colleagues--Democrat and Republican--who have signed 
on to this effort. This bipartisan effort is proof that we are capable 
of working together.
  But the mere fact that we have to have this conversation, that 
Senator McCaskill had to work for months for 67 votes to change rules 
that the Constitution clearly authorizes us to do with a simple 
majority vote, illustrates that secret holds are just another symptom 
of a much larger problem.
  That problem is the Senate rules themselves.
  The current rules--specifically rules V and XXII--effectively deny a 
majority of the Senate the opportunity to ever change its rules. This 
is something the drafters of the Constitution never intended.
  As I have explained numerous times in committee hearings and here on 
the floor, a simple majority of the Senate can adopt or amend its rules 
at the beginning of a new Congress because it is not bound by the rules 
of the previous Congress.
  Many colleagues, as well as constitutional scholars, agree with me. 
As my esteemed colleague from Utah, Senator Hatch, stated in a National 
Review article in 2005:

       The Senate has been called a `continuing body.' Yet 
     language reflecting this observation was included in Senate 
     rules only in 1959. The more important, and much older, sense 
     in which the Senate is a continuing body is its ongoing 
     constitutional authority to determine its rules. Rulings by 
     vice presidents of both parties, sitting as the President of 
     the Senate, confirm that each Senate may make that decision 
     for itself, either implicitly by acquiescence or explicitly 
     by amendment. Both conservative and liberal legal scholars, 
     including those who see no constitutional problems with the 
     current filibuster campaign, agree that a simple majority can 
     change Senate rules at the beginning of a new Congress.

  It is through this path--by a majority vote at the beginning of the 
next Congress--that we can reform the abuse of holds, secret 
filibusters, and the broken confirmation process. We can end the need 
for multiple cloture votes on the same matter, and we can instead begin 
to focus on the important business at hand.
  Now, critics will argue that the two-thirds vote requirement for 
cloture on a rules change is reasonable. They'll say that Senator 
McCaskill managed to gather 67 Senators, so it must be an achievable 
threshold.
  As I said at today's hearing, I commend Senator McCaskill for her 
diligence in building support to end secret holds. But I think it is 
also important to understand that other crucial reform efforts have 
failed because, inexplicably, it takes the same number of Senators to 
amend our rules as it takes to amend the U.S. Constitution.
  As Senators Wyden and Grassley said in their testimony today, their 
efforts to end secret holds goes back more than a decade. Indeed, the 
effect of holds, on both legislation and the confirmation of nominees, 
is hardly a new problem.
  In January 1979, Senator Byrd--then majority leader--proposed 
changing the Senate rules to limit debate to 30 minutes on a motion to 
proceed. Doing so would have significantly weakened the power of 
holds--and thus curbed their abuse.
  At the time, Leader Byrd took to the Senate Floor and said that 
unlimited debate on a motion to proceed, ``makes the majority leader 
and the majority party the subject of the control and the will of the 
minority. If I move to take up a matter, then one senator can hold up 
the Senate for as long as he can stand on his feet.'' Despite the 
moderate change that Senator Byrd proposed, it did not have the 
necessary 67 votes to overcome a filibuster.
  Efforts to reform the motion to proceed have continued since.
  In 1984, a bipartisan study group recommended placing a 2-hour limit 
on debate of a motion to proceed. That recommendation was ignored.
  And in 1993, Congress convened the Joint Committee on the 
Organization of Congress to determine how it can be a better 
institution. Senator Pete Domenici, my immediate predecessor, was the 
co-vice chairman of the committee. At a hearing before the committee, 
he said, ``If we abolish [the debatable motion to proceed], we have 
gone a long way to diffusing the validity of holds, because a hold is 
predicated on the fact that you can't get [a bill] up without a 
filibuster.''
  The final report of that joint committee stated: ``There was 
significant agreement that the motion to proceed to a bill should not 
be debatable, or that debate on the motion should be limited to 2 
hours.'' Despite the recommendation, nothing came of it.
  And here we are again today--31 years after Senator Byrd tried to 
institute a reform that members of both parties have agreed is 
necessary.
  Talking about change, and reform, does not solve the problem. We can 
hold hearings, convene bipartisan committees, and study the problem to 
death. But until we agree that the Constitution provides the right for 
each Senate to adopt its rules of proceedings by a simple majority 
vote, there will be no real reform.
  Recognizing our constitutional right to change Senate rules by a 
majority will not only allow reform, but it will help prevent abuse. 
Members are less likely to abuse a rule if they know that it can be 
changed by a majority in the next Congress. Conversely, if they think 
it takes 67 votes to change the rule, there is no disincentive against 
abuse.
  I look forward to future hearings in the Rules Committee and 
exploring ways that we can bring needed reform to the Senate at the 
beginning of the 112th Congress.
  I ask unanimous consent that an April 19 Roll Call article titled, 
``In Senate, Motion to Proceed' Should be Non-Debatable'' and Senator 
Hatch's 2005 article from the National Review Online be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                    [From Roll Call, Apr. 19, 2010]

   Stevenson: In Senate,``Motion To Proceed'' Should Be Non-Debatable

                       (By Charles A. Stevenson)

       There's a simple step the Senate could take that would 
     prevent a lot of the current delay and obstruction, while 
     still permitting lawmakers to debate some controversial 
     matters at length.
       The ``motion to proceed'' should be made non-debatable and 
     subject to an immediate majority-rule vote.
       This may seem like an arcane parliamentary matter, but in 
     practice the chance to kill a bill or nomination before it is 
     open to debate and amendment is a key weapon in the hands of 
     obstructionists. They don't even have to oppose the measure; 
     they just argue that ``now is not the time'' to take it up. 
     In fact, in the past 20 years, more than one-fourth of the 
     cloture petitions to end debate have been on motions to 
     proceed.
       Maybe the Senate, under pressure from voters and stymied by 
     the recent surge in filibusters, will change or repeal the 
     current rule that requires a 60-vote supermajority to cut off 
     debate. But that isn't likely, since it takes 67 votes to 
     change the rules and since all Senators can envision 
     circumstances when they might want to fight even though 
     outnumbered.
       Even if lawmakers eliminated the 60-vote rule, 
     obstructionists would retain numerous tools to block or delay 
     action.
       A compromise might be found on the motion to proceed, which 
     would have substantial additional benefits while still 
     preserving

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     the right of extended debate on substantive matters.
       Right now, the motion to take up legislation is non-
     debatable only in very special circumstances: if the Senate 
     has adjourned rather than recessing at the end of the 
     previous day, if it has a period of morning business the next 
     day and if it is in the second hour of the session. Even 
     then, the bill goes back to the calendar if debate continues 
     at the end of morning business.
       The biggest problem in the Senate's current rules isn't 
     that the majority can't work its will, but that a handful of 
     Senators can clog the legislative stream, preventing action 
     even on broadly supported measures.
       Cutting off debate requires a day's wait after the first 
     cloture petition is filed, and then 30 more hours of debate 
     even if cloture is invoked. This means that the leadership 
     needs at least four days just to end debate on the motion to 
     proceed, plus many more on controversial amendments.
       Four days on one measure is four days that can't be devoted 
     to other matters--and the Senate has averaged only 167 days 
     in session each year this decade.
       Making the motion to proceed non-debatable would not only 
     reduce the opportunities for filibusters but would also end 
     the practice of individual ``holds'' on bills and 
     nominations.
       Those holds aren't in the rules, but they are the result of 
     rules that require, for example, the Senate to take up bills 
     and nominations in the order they were added to the 
     calendar--that is, oldest first, with more urgent matters or 
     more recent versions delayed until all previous matters have 
     been disposed of.
       A non-debatable motion to proceed could still be rejected 
     by majority vote, and a matter being debated could still be 
     filibustered, but the opponents would have to muster their 
     troops, whereas now a single Member can hold the whole Senate 
     hostage.
       There are other rules changes that the Senate might adopt 
     to have a more orderly and businesslike legislative process.
       It could change the rule (XIX) that requires that ``all 
     debate shall be germane and confined to the specific question 
     then pending before the Senate'' for only the first three 
     hours and it could enforce more rigorously the section of 
     that rule that ``no Senator shall speak more than twice upon 
     any one question in debate on the same legislative day.''
       Senators could also drop the provision saying that the 
     rules continue from one Congress to another unless changed by 
     a two-thirds vote. That was added in 1959 under pressure from 
     Senators fighting civil rights bills in order to overturn a 
     ruling that would have allowed each new Congress to adopt 
     rules by majority vote--as the House of Representatives does 
     every two years.
       But if Senators are unwilling to change the basic rule on 
     filibusters, they should at least make the motion to proceed 
     non-debatable so that the Senate can get to work without 
     petty delays.
                                  ____


            [From the National Review Online, Jan. 12, 2005]

 Crisis Mode: A Fair and Constitutional Option To Beat the Filibuster 
                                  Game

                      (By Senator Orrin G. Hatch)

       Judicial nominations will be one of the most important 
     issues facing the Senate in the 109th Congress and the 
     question is whether we will return to the tradition of giving 
     nominations reaching the Senate floor an up or down vote. The 
     filibusters used to block such votes have mired the judicial-
     confirmation process in a political and constitutional crisis 
     that undermines democracy, the judiciary, the Senate, and the 
     Constitution. The Senate has in the past changed its 
     procedures to rebalance the minority's right to debate and 
     the majority's right to decide and it must do so again.
       Newspaper editorials condemning the filibusters outnumber 
     supporting ones by more than six-to-one. Last November, South 
     Dakotans retired former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, 
     in no small part, because he led the filibuster forces. Yet 
     within hours of his election to succeed Senator Daschle as 
     Minority Leader, Senator Harry Reid took to the Senate floor 
     to defend them. Hope is fading that the shrinking Democratic 
     minority will abandon its destructive course of using 
     filibusters to defeat majority supported judicial 
     nominations. Their failure to do so will require a deliberate 
     solution.


                         DIAGNOSING THE CRISIS

       If these filibusters were part of the Senate's historical 
     practice or, as a recent NRO editorial put it, merely made 
     confirming nominees more difficult, a deliberate solution 
     might not be warranted. But this is a crisis, not a problem 
     of inconvenience.
       Senate rules reflect an emphasis on deliberation and 
     debate. Either by unanimous agreement or at least 60 votes on 
     a motion to invoke cloture under Rule 22, the Senate must end 
     debate before it can vote on anything. From the Spanish 
     filibustero, a filibuster was a mercenary who tries to 
     destabilize a government. A filibuster occurs most plainly on 
     the Senate floor when efforts to end debate fail, either by 
     objection to unanimous consent or defeat of a cloture motion. 
     During the 108th Congress, Senate Democrats defeated ten 
     majority-supported nominations to the U.S. Court of Appeals 
     by objecting to every unanimous consent request and defeating 
     every cloture motion. This tactic made good on then-
     Democratic Leader Tom Daschle's February 2001 vow to use 
     ``whatever means necessary'' to defeat judicial nominations. 
     These filibusters are unprecedented, unfair, dangerous, 
     partisan, and unconstitutional.


                           A POLITICAL CRISIS

       These are the first filibusters in American history to 
     defeat majority supported judicial nominations. Before the 
     108th Congress, 13 of the 14 judicial nominations on which 
     the Senate took a cloture vote were confirmed. President 
     Johnson withdrew the 1968 nomination of Abe Fortas to be 
     Supreme Court chief justice the day after a failed cloture 
     vote showed the nomination did not have clear majority 
     support. In contrast, Democrats have now crossed the 
     confirmation Rubicon by using the filibuster to defeat 
     judicial nominations which enjoy clear majority support.
       Focusing on President Clinton's judicial nominations in 
     1999, I described what has been the Senate's historical 
     standard for judicial nominations: ``Let's make our case if 
     we have disagreement, and then vote.'' Democrats' new 
     filibusters abandons this tradition and is unfair to senators 
     who must provide the ``advice and consent'' the Constitution 
     requires of them through a final up or down vote. It is also 
     unfair to nominees who have agreed, often at personal and 
     financial sacrifice, to judicial service only to face 
     scurrilous attacks, trumped up charges, character 
     assassination, and smear campaigns. They should not also be 
     held in permanent filibuster limbo. Senators can vote for or 
     against any judicial nominee for any reason, but senators 
     should vote.
       These unprecedented and unfair filibusters are distorting 
     the way the Senate does business. Before the 108th Congress, 
     cloture votes were used overwhelmingly for legislation rather 
     than nominations. The percentage of cloture votes used for 
     judicial nominations jumped a whopping 900 percent during 
     President Bush's first term from the previous 25 years since 
     adoption of the current cloture rule. And before the 108th 
     Congress, the few cloture votes on judicial nominations were 
     sometimes used to ensure up or down votes. Even on 
     controversial nominees such as Richard Paez and Marsha 
     Berzon, we invoked cloture to ensure that we would vote on 
     confirmation. We did, and both are today sitting federal 
     judges. In contrast, these new Democratic filibusters are 
     designed to prevent, rather than secure, an up or down vote 
     and to ensure that targeted judicial nominations are defeated 
     rather than debated.
       These filibusters are also completely partisan. The average 
     tally on cloture votes during the 108th Congress was 53-43, 
     enough to confirm but not enough to invoke cloture and end 
     debate. Democrats provided every single vote against 
     permitting an up or down vote. In fact, Democrats have cast 
     more than 92 percent of all votes against cloture on judicial 
     nominations in American history.


                        A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS

       Unprecedented, unfair, and partisan filibusters that 
     distort Senate procedures constitute a political crisis. By 
     trying to use Rule 22's cloture requirement to change the 
     Constitution's confirmation requirement, these Democratic 
     filibusters also constitute a constitutional crisis.
       The Constitution gives the Senate authority to determine 
     its procedural rules. More than a century ago, however, the 
     Supreme Court unanimously recognized the obvious maxim that 
     those rules may not ``ignore constitutional restraints.'' The 
     Constitution explicitly requires a supermajority vote for 
     such things as trying impeachments or overriding a 
     presidential veto; it does not do so for confirming 
     nominations. Article II, Section 2, even mentions ratifying 
     treaties and confirming nominees in the very same sentence, 
     requiring a supermajority for the first but not for the 
     second. Twisting Senate rules to create a confirmation 
     supermajority undermines the Constitution. As Senator Joseph 
     Lieberman once argued, it amounts to ``an amendment of the 
     Constitution by rule of the U.S. Senate.''
       But don't take my word for it. The same senators leading 
     the current filibuster campaign once argued that all 
     filibusters are unconstitutional. Senator Lieberman argued in 
     1995 that a supermajority requirement for cloture has ``no 
     constitutional basis.'' Senator Tom Harkin insisted that 
     ``the filibuster rules are unconstitutional'' because ``the 
     Constitution sets out . . . when you need majority or 
     supermajority votes in the Senate.'' And former Senator 
     Daschle said that because the Constitution ``is 
     straightforward about the few instances in which more than a 
     majority of the Congress must vote. . . . Democracy means 
     majority rule, not minority gridlock.'' He later applied this 
     to judicial nomination filibusters: ``I find it simply 
     baffling that a Senator would vote against even voting on a 
     judicial nomination.'' That each of these senators voted for 
     every judicial-nomination filibuster during the 108th 
     Congress is baffling indeed.
       These senators argued that legislative as well as 
     nomination filibusters are unconstitutional. Filibusters of 
     legislation, however, are different and solving the current 
     crisis does not require throwing the entire filibuster baby 
     out with the judicial nomination bathwater. The Senate's 
     authority to determine its own rules is greatest regarding 
     what is most completely within its jurisdiction, namely, 
     legislation. And legislative filibusters have a long history. 
     Rule 22 itself did not even potentially apply to nominations 
     until decades after its adoption. Neither America's founders, 
     nor the Senate that

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     adopted Rule 22 to address legislative gridlock, ever 
     imagined that filibusters would be used to highjack the 
     judicial appointment process.


                      TRYING TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT

       Liberal interest groups, and many in the mainstream media, 
     eagerly repeat Democratic talking points trying to change, 
     rather than address, the subject. For example, they claim 
     that, without the filibuster, the Senate would be nothing 
     more than a ``rubberstamp'' for the president's judicial 
     nominations. Losing a fair fight, however, does not 
     rubberstamp the winner; giving up without a fight does. 
     Active opposition to a judicial nomination, especially 
     expressed through a negative vote, is the best remedy against 
     being a rubberstamp.
       They also try to change the definition of a filibuster. On 
     March 11, 2003, for example, Senator Patrick Leahy, ranking 
     Judiciary Committee Democrat, used a chart titled 
     ``Republican Filibusters of Nominees.'' Many individuals on 
     the list, however, are today sitting federal judges, some 
     confirmed after invoking cloture and others without taking a 
     cloture vote at all. Invoking cloture and confirming 
     nominations is no precedent for not invoking cloture and 
     refusing to confirm nominations.
       Many senators once opposed the very judicial nomination 
     filibusters they now embrace. Senator Leahy, for example, 
     said in 1998: ``I have stated over and over again. . .that I 
     would object and fight against any filibuster on a judge, 
     whether it is somebody I opposed or supported.'' Since then, 
     he has voted against cloture on judicial nominations 21 out 
     of 26 times. Senator Ted Kennedy, a former chairman of the 
     Judiciary Committee, said in 1995 that ``Senators who believe 
     in fairness will not let a minority of the Senate deny [the 
     nominee] his vote by the entire Senate.'' Since then, he has 
     voted to let a minority of the Senate deny judicial nominees 
     a vote 18 out of 23 times.
       Let me put my own record on the table. I have never voted 
     against cloture on a judicial nomination. I opposed 
     filibusters of Carter and Clinton judicial nominees, Reagan 
     and Bush judicial nominees, all judicial nominees. Along with 
     then-Majority Leader Trent Lott, I repeatedly warned that 
     filibustering Clinton judicial nominees would be a 
     ``travesty'' and helped make sure that every Clinton judicial 
     nomination reaching the full Senate received a final 
     confirmation decision. That should be the permanent standard, 
     no matter which party controls the Senate or occupies the 
     White House.


                           SOLVING THE CRISIS

       The Senate has periodically faced the situation where the 
     minority's right to debate has improperly overwhelmed the 
     majority's right to decide. And we have changed our 
     procedures in a way that preserves the minority's right to 
     debate, and even to filibuster legislation, while solving the 
     crisis at hand.
       The Senate's first legislative rules, adopted in 1789, 
     directly reflected majority rule. Rule 8 allowed a simple 
     majority to ``move the previous question'' and proceed to 
     vote on a pending matter. Invoked only three times in 17 
     years, however, Rule 8 was dropped in the Senate rules 
     revision of 1806, meaning unanimous consent was then 
     necessary to end debate. Dozens of reform efforts during the 
     19th century tried to rein in the minority's abuse of the 
     right to debate. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson described 
     what had become of majority rule: ``The Senate of the United 
     States is the only legislative body in the world which cannot 
     act when its majority is ready for action. . . . The only 
     remedy is that the rules of the Senate shall be altered.'' 
     Leadership turned gridlock into reform, and that year the 
     Senate adopted Rule 22, by which \2/3\ of Senators present 
     and voting could invoke cloture, or end debate, on a pending 
     measure.
       Just as the minority abused the unanimous consent threshold 
     in the 19th century, the minority abused the \2/3\ threshold 
     in the 20th century. A resolution to reinstate the previous 
     question rule was introduced, and only narrowly defeated, 
     within a year of Rule 22's adoption. A steady stream of 
     reform attempts followed, and a series of modifications made 
     until the current 60-vote threshold was adopted in 1975. The 
     point is that the Senate has periodically rebalanced the 
     minority's right to debate and the majority's right to 
     decide. Today's crisis, with constitutional as well as 
     political dimensions and affecting all three branches of 
     government, presents an even more compelling case to do so.
       These filibusters are an unprecedented shift in the kind, 
     not just the degree, of the minority's tactics. After a full, 
     fair, and vigorous debate on judicial nominations, a simple 
     majority must at some point be able to proceed to a vote. A 
     simple majority can achieve this goal either by actually 
     amending Rule 22 or by sustaining an appropriate 
     parliamentary ruling.


                 A SIMPLE MAJORITY CAN CHANGE THE RULES

       The Senate exercises its constitutional authority to 
     determine its procedural rules either implicitly or 
     explicitly. Once a new Congress begins, operating under 
     existing rules implicitly adopts them ``by acquiescence.'' 
     The Senate explicitly determines its rules by formally 
     amending them, and the procedure depends on its timing. After 
     Rule 22 has been adopted by acquiescence, it requires 67 
     votes for cloture on a rules change. Before the Senate adopts 
     Rule 22 by acquiescence, however, ordinary parliamentary 
     rules apply and a simple majority can invoke cloture and 
     change Senate rules.
       Some object to this conclusion by observing that, because 
     only a portion of its membership changes with each election, 
     the Senate has been called a ``continuing body.'' Yet 
     language reflecting this observation was included in Senate 
     rules only in 1959. The more important, and much older, sense 
     in which the Senate is a continuing body is its ongoing 
     constitutional authority to determine its rules. Rulings by 
     vice presidents of both parties, sitting as the President of 
     the Senate, confirm that each Senate may make that decision 
     for itself, either implicitly by acquiescence or explicitly 
     by amendment. Both conservative and liberal legal scholars, 
     including those who see no constitutional problems with the 
     current filibuster campaign, agree that a simple majority can 
     change Senate rules at the beginning of a new Congress.


          A SIMPLE MAJORITY CAN UPHOLD A PARLIAMENTARY RULING

       An alternative strategy involves a parliamentary ruling in 
     the context of considering an individual nomination. This 
     approach can be pursued at any time, and would not actually 
     amend Rule 22. The precedent it would set depends on the 
     specific ruling it produces and the facts of the situation in 
     which it arises.
       Speculation, often inaccurate, abounds about how this 
     strategy would work. One newspaper, for example, offered a 
     common description that this approach would seek ``a ruling 
     from the Senate parliamentarian that the filibuster of 
     executive nominations is unconstitutional.'' Under long-
     standing Senate parliamentary precedent, however, the 
     presiding officer does not decide such constitutional 
     questions but submits them to the full Senate, where they are 
     debatable and subject to Rule 22's 60-vote requirement. A 
     filibuster would then prevent solving this filibuster crisis. 
     Should the chair rule in favor of a properly framed non-
     debatable point of order, Democrats would certainly appeal, 
     but the majority could still sustain the ruling by voting for 
     a non-debatable motion to table the appeal.
       Democrats have threatened that, if the majority pursues a 
     deliberate solution to this political and constitutional 
     crisis, they will bring the entire Senate to a screeching 
     halt. Perhaps they see this as way to further escalate the 
     confirmation crisis, as the Senate cannot confirm judicial 
     nominations if it can do nothing at all. No one, however, 
     seriously believes that, if the partisan roles were reversed, 
     Democrats--the ones who once proposed abolishing even 
     legislative filibusters--would hesitate for a moment before 
     changing Senate procedures to facilitate consideration of 
     judicial nominations they favored.


                      A FAMILIAR FORK IN THE ROAD

       The United States Senate is a unique institution. Our rules 
     allowing for extended debate protect the minority's role in 
     the legislative process. We must preserve that role. The 
     current filibuster campaign against judicial nominations, 
     however, is the real attack on Senate tradition and an 
     unprecedented example of placing short-term advantage above 
     longstanding fundamental principles. It is not simply 
     annoying or frustrating, but a new and dangerous kind of 
     obstruction which threatens democracy, the Senate, the 
     judiciary, and even the Constitution itself. As such, it 
     requires a more serious and deliberate solution.
       While judicial appointments can be politically contentious 
     and ideologically divisive, the confirmation process must 
     still be handled through a fair process that honors the 
     Constitution and Senate tradition. If the fight is fair and 
     constitutional, let the chips fall where they may. As it has 
     before, the Senate must change its procedures to properly 
     balance majority rule and extended debate. That way, we can 
     vigorously debate judicial nominations and still conduct the 
     people's business.

                          ____________________