A "Collegial" Club Trashes the Constitution
By Randall Nunn (05/27/05)
On Monday night, a group of 14 so-called “moderates” (i.e., not conservatives) signed a memorandum of understanding designed to save the “collegial” atmosphere and the rules of that elite social club called the U.S. Senate, while at the same time trashing the “advice and consent” provision of the U.S. Constitution, thumbing their noses at the president’s right to select nominees and have them voted on and depriving those nominated of the opportunity to serve in what would probably be the highlight of their careers.
Senator John McCain said that the agreement reflects the desire to see the institution of the Senate function in ways “that protect the rights of the minority.” It would have been nice if Senator McCain had displayed at least the same concern for the right of the majority to confirm (or reject) those persons nominated to the bench by President Bush. When Senators become more interested in preserving collegiality and their “club rules” than in preserving our Constitution’s checks and balances, it is time to send them back home as private citizens where they can dither and drool in their drinks in some other social club that won’t inflict as much harm on the rest of us.
The mainstream media, as usual, mischaracterized the entire debate, focusing on the filibuster rules of the Senate rather than the “advice and consent” clause of the U.S. Constitution. Senate rules can be changed every day if the Senators wish to do so. In fact, the filibuster rules have been changed from time to time over the years. What was truly a major change in procedure was the calculated use of the filibuster as a weapon to prevent the majority from voting on judicial nominees who a partisan group wished to stop for partisan reasons.
The president’s nominees were not stopped because they were incompetent or unfit for the position but only because they were more conservative than some members of the Senate’s “good ole boy and good ole girl” club could accept. And lost in the smoke of this battle were those good and decent nominees whose opportunity to serve in a position of honor was bargained away in a deal that would allow the “collegial” Senators to continue to rub elbows at the same cocktail parties without any unseemly squabbling over important constitutional issues.
It is clear that the Senate agreement was a defeat for those who voted for President Bush and conservatives in Congress in the last several elections, since the agreement compromised away the very representation they thought they were electing. In particular, the 14 senators who signed the memorandum of misunderstanding ought to become targets of conservatives everywhere. These 14 are more interested in “getting along” and being collegial than they are in protecting the system of government that says the president gets to select federal judges so long as they are approved by a majority of the U.S. Senate. The battle now is not so much the presidency as it is the Senate. Conservatives ought to stop contributing to organizations that support all candidates simply because of their party affiliation, and contribute instead to specific candidates or organizations that support only conservative candidates.
It appears that until the Republicans have at least 60 votes in the Senate, the Democratic machine is determined to use the Senate’s own rules to perpetuate government by the minority, so that government “of the liberals, by the liberals, and for the liberals” shall not perish from this earth but shall be rammed down the throats of the majority. And as long as we have Senators like John Warner, Mike DeWine, Lindsey Graham and the other signers of this memorandum of surrender to the left, we will have “peace in our time” in the U.S. Senate. Who wants to bet that this “collegiality” will last through the next nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court?
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