Democrats Eviscerated Filibuster 5 Years Ago, Now They Can't Stop Kavanaugh
As hearings inch closer for Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Democrats are expressing some regret for their decision to get rid of the filibuster for most presidential nominees back in 2013.
Democrats launched a series of attacks on Kavanaugh over the weekend in an attempt to slow down the nomination process. According to The New York Times, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was highly critical of the White House after the Trump administration announced on Friday that it would not release about 100,000 documents from Kavanaugh’s time as a lawyer in the George W. Bush White House because of executive privilege issues.
Schumer took to Twitter to blast the announcement.
“We’re witnessing a Friday night document massacre,” he wrote. “President Trump’s decision to step in at the last moment and hide 100k pages of Judge Kavanaugh’s records from the American public is not only unprecedented in the history of SCOTUS noms, it has all the makings of a cover up.”
We’re witnessing a Friday night document massacre. President Trump’s decision to step in at the last moment and hide 100k pages of Judge Kavanaugh’s records from the American public is not only unprecedented in the history of SCOTUS noms, it has all the makings of a cover up. https://t.co/TgBAjOBRrW
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) September 1, 2018
He then criticized Republicans for “collusion” saying, “Republicans in the Senate and the President of the United States are colluding to keep Judge Kavanaugh’s records secret, and trying to hide their actions from the American people by doing it on the Friday night of a holiday weekend.”
Republicans in the Senate and the President of the United States are colluding to keep Judge Kavanaugh’s records secret, and trying to hide their actions from the American people by doing it on the Friday night of a holiday weekend.
What are they trying so desperately to hide?
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) September 1, 2018
However these attacks are doing little stop the nomination process. In fact, Republicans are confident that Kavanaugh will get the votes needed to be confirmed as the next Supreme Court Justice.
On “Fox News Sunday,” South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham expressed that optimism, according to the Washington Examiner.
“If he does well at the hearing, he will get — my belief — 55 [votes]. Or higher if he does well, and I’m sure he will do well,” Graham said.
Democrats seem to sense an air of inevitability regarding Kavanaugh’s nomination. Over the weekend, Sen. Amy Klobuchar mentioned her regret that Senate Democrats then under the leadership of Nevada’s Sen. Harry Reid had invoked the “nuclear option” to get rid of filibusters for judicial appointments up to the Supreme Court level.
That helped then-President Barack Obama get his judicial appointments through the Senate, but from there it was just a short step for current Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to do away with the filibuster for Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the high court last year..
“I don’t think we should have made that change when we look back at it,” Klobuchar told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” according to The Washington Times. “But it happened because we were so frustrated because President Obama wasn’t able to get his nominees, but I think we would have been in a better place now.”
In a way, Republican’s prophesied this regret when Democrats voted for the major rules change back in 2013.
At the time, according to The Washington Post, Alabama Sen. Richard C. Shelby said Democrats were making a bad decision that they would regret.
“Democrats won’t be in power in perpetuity. This is a mistake — a big one for the long run,” he said. “Maybe not for the short run. Short-term gains, but I think it changes the Senate tremendously in a bad way.”
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