The Harry Reid rule

It’ll come back to haunt his party

ONCE AGAIN, yet again, we have to disagree with Ted Cruz (R-Himself), who happens to sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee overseeing this current spectacle. He told the papers the opposition—the loud opposition— to Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the nation’s top court was “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” We’ve heard that phrase somewhere before.

But come on, senator. This signifies a lot, man.

What a country! What a rambunctious democracy! Just as the founding fathers imagined it. And maybe even liked it. At least these days the pols aren’t calling each other out to a sand bar for a duel with pistols. Yet.

Boy, are these hearings hopping. Hopping mad. It warms the inky heart to know that folks are still this interested in government. Americans shouting, interrupting, making demands and chanting are . . . great! We’d rather it commenced outside, in the open air, all the better to allow those to be heard at a hearing. But if a body gets a ticket inside, what’s more American than telling off elected officials—loudly?

Besides, security is tight at these things. And it doesn’t take all that long to remove those who’d express themselves to the point of being disruptive. How about them Bill of Rights?

In this still young and still healthy democracy, a hearing of this sort can still resemble a rodeo, a rasslin’ match and one of those Prime Minister’s Questions sessions they show on C-SPAN late at night. America, you’re beautiful when you’re angry.

NOW THEN, to the partisans on the other side of the room, seated a little higher—with the microphones.

Members of the committee might not necessarily be the adults in the room, not from what we saw, but they really should have more respect for the process, and for their fellow committee members. A conservative, right-wing, nut-job media source—that is, NBC News—reported that the Democrats on the committee planned to disrupt Judge Kavanaugh’s hearing in advance. So much for advise and consent. More like whine and stall.

From NBC: Democrats “interrupted, argued about the ground rules and drew attention to the lack of documents being made available to them. They were helped by numerous protesters who tried to interrupt by shouting throughout the morning proceedings, only to be escorted out of the room by police while the senators trudged on . . . .

“After 90 minutes of protests and attempts to stall, the hearing officially got underway. It was an exhibition that had been planned by Democrats over a series of conversations and a conference call with members that was finalized over the weekend.”

We wonder if the more port-leaning senators on the committee have ever heard that what goes around comes around. Maybe they should be reminded of a decidedly former senator by the name of Harry Reid. That old pugilist and fabulist changed the Senate’s rules in 2013 on judicial nominations to allow for whichever party holds the majority—no matter how slim— to push through its nominations. And the minority be damned. It was a big change for the United States Senate.

Maybe Harry Reid thought that he’d always be the majority leader, or that there really was something called the Emerging Democratic Majority and the Republicans would never again hold a gavel. For proof of his mistake, we give Gentle Reader two names: Justice Neil Gorsuch and soon-to-be Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

We doubt that in a future Senate committee hearing Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham, Ben Sasse or John Cornyn—should they find themselves in the minority—would be as rude or shrill as certain of their colleagues appeared this week. But if they were, and coordinated an effort to nix a Democratic nominee for the bench by disrupting a committee hearing, they’d only be following another precedent by their friends on the left.

Lindsey Graham may be our favorite United States senator not from Arkansas. On Tuesday, he gave some advice to the Democrats on the committee who want more of a say—maybe all of the say—on a president’s nominations to the Supreme Court: Win an election.

Because elections have consequences. A president named Barack Obama once noted that.

And the Harry Reid legacy goes on. As much as his party might try to fight it.