In your editorial about the demise of the filibuster for presidential appointees and lower-court judicial nominees (“GOP provoked filibuster move, but Senate’s woes run deeper,” Editorial, Nov. 23), you asked, “Would [liberals] really be comfortable if a Republican president rammed through a slate of pro-life judicial nominees on simple majority votes?”
Do you mean nominees like Priscilla Owen, who helped clear the way for the oppressive Texas law requiring abortion providers to have hospital admitting privileges? She was nominated by George W. Bush and approved 55-43 by the Republican-dominated Senate.
Do you mean people like Janice Rogers Brown — nominated by Bush and approved 56-43 by the same Senate — who ruled recently that the Affordable Care Act cannot force companies to offer contraceptive coverage?
Both of those judges were approved after seven moderate Democratic senators agreed, after negotiations with seven Republican colleagues, to abandon the filibuster of judges except in “extraordinary circumstances.”
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So, the question is not whether liberals would be comfortable; the question is whether the Democrats would ever have the conviction and unity of purpose to carry through a filibuster in the circumstances you describe. And apparently, the answer to this latter question is no.