Collegiate Times

What do you do when a Republican president has appointed a conservative judge to the Supreme Court and is only days away from a virtually guaranteed confirmation? According to some prominent Democrats, the only option left to stop their political opponents is to utilize a century?s old procedure known as the filibuster.

Normally a delay effort by a member of the U.S. Senate to stop the voting on a bill that will likely pass, the dissenting senator has to stand and talk ? often about whatever they feel like ? on the Senate floor before the bill can be voted on. The filibuster ends when the others either decide to vote for him or her to stop, known as a cloture, or simply give up on the bill in question.

This type of strategy at first sounds childishly stubborn. Many lawmakers in recent years seem to agree; members of both parties have used the filibuster relatively sparingly. But the filibuster can be an effective political tool; it reveals the dedication a senator has toward his or her moral objections on a particular issue. This isn?t always a good thing. The most famous use of the filibuster came from the late Strom Thurmond.

Thurmond?s devotion to racial segregation was made evident by a twenty-four hour marathon rant against the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Despite changing his views on segregation in later years, his racially-charged tenacity is still one of the major things for which Thurmond is remembered. While rarely ever reaching that extreme of a level today, filibustering is still a good contingency to keep in the political back pocket. However, the future is uncertain for the use of filibustering the appointment of judicial nominees.

Senate Democrats such as Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) threaten to stop Samuel Alito, on the brink of his confirmation, with a filibuster. This tactic stands only the slimmest chance of succeeding, as over sixty senators have already said that they would vote for Alito, a number that exceeds the amount of votes needed to overturn a filibuster in the Senate. Sen. Joe Biden, (D-Del.) wisely recognizes the futility of this action when he said, ?I think a filibuster makes sense when you have a prospect of actually succeeding,? on CNN recently.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), another Democrat, also thinks that the filibuster is the wrong way to get support for Democratic opposition to Alito. Obama said on Sunday, ?We need to recognize, because Judge Alito will be confirmed, that, if we?re going to oppose a nominee that we?ve got to persuade the American people that, in fact, their values are at stake.?

Both of these senators have the right idea; they?re realistic about Alito?s impending success, but far from defeated. The pro-filibuster Democrats like Kennedy and Kerry are coming across to the public as desperate and bitter instead of the noble, political martyrs they seem to think they are. They forget that when Clinton was in office, he also appointed two nominees for the Supreme Court who were dually confirmed. Ruth Bader Ginsberg was confirmed by a 96-3 vote from the Senate. Stephen Breyer was confirmed by an 87-9 vote. In both cases, there was no threat of a Republican filibuster ? in fact, the numbers show that most welcomed Clinton?s two candidates. As far as the Democrats should be concerned, the confirmation of Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts makes it par for the course.

Whether or not a filibuster will be effective in stopping a Supreme Court confirmation is, in most cases, a foregone conclusion. But certain overzealous Republicans naively want to ensure that the filibuster won?t be available as an option in the future. By using an assertive majority party voting strategy known as the ?nuclear option,? majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn) has threatened to vote filibustering presidential court appointees into non-existence. Frist needs to look beyond the here and now and into the future. It is common sense to assume that the Republican Party will not be in the majority forever, and they may eventually want to use the filibuster to stop a Democratic president?s possible nominees. Frist and those who support him look as distressed and obstinate as the filibuster-threatening Democrats. It?s now more than obvious that Alito will be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, so an attempt to stop filibustering now is nothing more than overkill.

The court has a tendency to remain balanced even in the midst of roster changes. Republicans need to realize filibustering may still prove to be a necessary tool in the future, and for now, Democrats need to put their issues with Alito to bed.