USA TODAY International Edition
Fallout from ‘ nuclear option’ contaminates both parties
Thursday’s historic showdown between Democrats and Republicans blew away what little chance was left for bipartisanship cooperation in the Senate and ideological moderation on the Supreme Court.
Both sides walked away satisfied with their destructive handiwork, but their sense of contentment is destined to be fleeting.
Like children bent on immediate gratification, Senate Democrats, holding just 48 votes, used the filibuster in a bid to stop the confirmation of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch. The move momentarily required Gorsuch to get 60 votes, instead of a simple majority, for confirmation.
But, as everyone expected, Republicans retaliated immediately by changing Senate rules, using the “nuclear option” to eliminate the filibuster in Supreme Court confirmation battles. And Gorsuch will end up being seated.
All of this might sound like procedural minutiae, but it will greatly affect the future of the Senate, the Supreme Court and the nation.
In the short term, the two parties got what they wanted. Democrats showed their base that they stood up to Trump and retaliated for the shameless obstruction that Senate Republicans used last year to thwart President Obama’s highly qualified nominee, Merrick Garland, for the vacancy left by the death of conservative icon Antonin Scalia.
Republicans, meanwhile, gloried in one simple fact: They won. They showed that they’d do whatever was needed to seat a judge at least as conservative as Scalia.
In the long run, however, both sides will undoubtedly come to regret their impetuous and destructive actions.
Democrats weren’t going to win this fight. Gorsuch has sterling credentials and a top rating from the American Bar Association. Nor is he going to change the ideological balance on the high court from the way it was when Scalia was alive.
But Trump’s next nominee, if he gets one, could alter that balance for decades. Any leverage a filibuster might have given the Democrats was squandered in a no- win battle.
And the Republicans, who will one day be back in the minority, lost a key tool for thwarting people they oppose.
If the filibuster also dies for legislation, as appears inevitable at some point, both parties will also lose a way to impede policies they dislike.
As for who’s at fault for reaching this moment, neither party is blameless. Senate Democrats abused the filibuster during George W. Bush’s administration to thwart his judicial nominees. Then, in 2013, Republicans did the same to Obama. Frustrated Democrats used the “nuclear option” to eliminate the filibuster for lower- court nominees, and Republicans warned darkly how dangerous that was.
Now the parties have switched tactics and scripts, sounding equally hypocritical. Without a 60- vote standard, nominees to the federal courts will be even further to the left or the right, depending which party is in power. Public confidence in the Senate will continue to erode, along with the trust that justices are fair and impartial arbiters of the law.