Despite the rhetoric surrounding the GOP's insistence that Democratic senators are unfairly denying up and down voting of several of President Bush's judicial nominees, I recall that same GOP using the filibuster to not only deny President Clinton several judgeships, but as history shows us they used the filibuster for many years to stop civil rights legislation to reach the floor of the senate for a vote.
I am not a scholar of political or constitutional history, but it seems clear that the GOP is out of control in its bid to secure absolute power over all three branches of the government. Checks and balances exist in our three-tiered government to deny one branch ultimate power over the others. The Senate was created by our founding fathers to temper the House because of its "fad prone" legislative leanings.
The filibuster was created as a last ditch effort for the minority party to have some say in the Senate. If you take away the filibuster to satisfy a virtually theocratic executive branch, you take away the will and rights of a minority dedicated to keeping judges whose extremist views render them antithetical to purpose of the U.S. Constitution: freedom of religion, freedom of property, freedom of speech.
The judges the Democrats have blocked represent a small, extreme segment of the GOP with huge ties to the extreme right and much influence in the Bush administration.
It seems interesting to me that the Democrats in power for much of the 20th century never truly considered the "nuclear option" when Republicans decided to filibuster. The tradition of the Senate is to allow the minority to have some say in the workings of the government.
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If the Republicans go through with this attempt to destroy this system of checks and balances, we will all lose. What would the point of even having an opposition party? Has anyone heard of the phrase "Absolute power corrupts absolutely"? Republicans won't be the majority forever. The tables will be turned. This partisan attempt will backfire on the Republicans and diminish the strength of our democracy.
The Republicans say the Democrats are playing partisan politics which is kind of like the pot calling the kettle black. Where is the sense in all of this?
Brent Jaenicke
Fargo
