For those who thought the idea of voting a Republican out of office was a bad idea in order to make progress on illegal immigration, here is a hypothetical question for you:
Let us say that Senator Arlen Specter becomes chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and becomes determined to block any Supreme Court nominations who model their views after Justice Scalia (which I would maintain is a supposition that is hardly far-fetched).
Let's also say that the rest of the Republican establishment can't muster up the backbone to oust Specter from the chairmanship.
Would you feel that it would be better to continue to vote Specter in to office and have several more O'Connors and Souter's
appointed to the court?
Or do you think it would be better to vote for a single Democrat (thereby cutting the Republican majority from 55 to 54 Senators) and then having someone in the Senate chairmanship who will fight for Scalia-style textualists?
Or would it be better to vote Specter in again, and have only Souter-style appointments serve on the High Court for the next generation because "the Democrats are worse"?
This thought doesn't necessarily apply to all critics of Political Human Sacrifice, but it is simply a fact that many (perhaps even a majority) of people don't know how government works vis-a-vis committees, chairmanships, and seniority among Congressional members. It certainly isn't taught in schools.
What such people need to know is that it often doesn't matter how broadly a position has support in Congress. What matters is where the political pressure is applied (even if such pressure is relatively small).
You can have a huge majority of the ruling party support measure X. But if a committee chair opposes X, then the issue will never pass because it will be killed in committee and the majority will never even get a chance to vote on it.
If getting rid of a GOP Senator spelled the difference between 60 vs. 59 seats, that might be an important consideration since it takes 60 Senate members to cut off filibusters from the minority party. However, if you don't have 60 members, there is very little functional difference between a 55 member majority in the Senate versus a 54 member majority (as long as it is at least 50+1).
That is why it is critical that the right members hold chairmanships and not simply hand them out by seniority. Having the right chairmanships in a smaller majority is far preferable to having bad chairmen ruling over a much broader majority.
That was the critical ideological component behind why David Dreier (chairman of the very powerful House Rules Committee) was targeted for Political Human Sacrifice, and why Arlen Specter should not be allowed to hold the Senate Judiciary Chair despite any other side benefits that he might bring by being in the Senate.
If he can be denied the chairmanship without voting him out of office - so much the better. I realize that ensuring good court appointments and having Specter remain in office is not an either/or proposition...at this point.
But, hypothetically, if it ever became an either/or proposition...and he was able to still win the primary election in 2010...and all the projections indicated that the Senate would remain firmly in GOP control even without Specter's seat....Would you still maintain that its better to vote for Specter than a (more) liberal Democrat?
If you simply don't want Scalia-style justices, then fine. You can still support a political party and have differing views on what ideal judicial philosophies can be. But it would be best to simply be upfront about that.
What I find problematic is that people often want to advance position/cause X and then refuse to engage in asymetrical thinking outside of the bi-party political box in terms of getting X advanced.
For some, party unity is an end in itself. For others, it is only a means to a higher end - the advancement of sound policies. And sometimes, you need to take one step back in order to move two steps forward.
Posted by Justin Levine at November 8, 2004 04:32 PM | TrackBack