Hendrik Hertzberg: FILIBLUSTER

COMMENT

FILIBLUSTER

by Hendrik Hertzberg

Issue of 2005-06-13 and 20
Posted 2005-06-06

The battle in the United States Senate over judicial filibusters has been a field day for martial metaphors (such as “field day,” an eighteenth-century term for a day of military exercises). On May 23rd, war clouds were gathering ominously over the Capitol. The triggering of what had been dubbed the nuclear option seemed just hours away. Armageddon was at hand. Then—like the Wild Bunch, or the Seven Samurai times two, or the Dirty Dozen plus two—a squad of fourteen centrists, half Republicans and half Democrats, rode to the rescue. Their agreement called for (a) free passes for three of President Bush’s pending appeals-court nominations, (b) future nominees to be filibustered only in “extraordinary circumstances” (with everyone free to decide when such circumstances exist), and (c) no funny business with Senate Rule XXII—the rule under which it takes sixty of the one hundred senators to end a filibuster (and sixty-seven to end debate on changing the rule under which it takes sixty).