In 1975, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia introduced a bill that was co-sponsored by liberal Republicans Robert Griffin and Hugh Scott, along with old liberal Democratic warhorse, Mike Mansfield. The intent of this bill was to change the standing rules to permit ?limitation of debate? (i.e., ending a filibuster) with a three-fifths vote of the whole Senate.
The Byrd resolution was postponed indefinitely. But in March 1975 a bill sponsored by then-Sen. Walter Mondale contained the same language as the Byrd bill, and it passed. Any change of the standing rules today is labeled the ?nuclear option.? Back then a rule-change seemed only a small firecracker.
According to reports, Byrd also changed Senate precedents with simple up-or-down majority votes in 1977, 1979, 1980, and 1987. In other words, there is a clear history of rule-changing by the very same ?nuclear option? that Byrd vehemently objects to today.
But once the bomb, or firecracker, goes off in the Senate, the air is going to clear. With an end to judicial filibusters, judges William Pryor, Priscilla Owens, Richard Griffin, Henry Saad, and Susan Neilson will all get a fair shot at being confirmed. The business community, which has been opposed to the nuclear option, will also enjoy the filibuster-free air. Senate Democrats, playing by the new rules, will have a much tougher time standing in the way of tort reform, energy reform, and quite possibly Social Security reform and tax reform.
While there is a precedent for changing the rules in the Senate, there is none for the type of obstructionism we?re seeing from the modern Democratic party. As Hugh Hewitt and Duane Patterson point out, there was exactly 1 judicial nominee filibustered on the Senate floor in the 20th century -- the ethically challenged judge Abe Fortas. There have already been 10 such filibustered nominees in the 21st century, and we?re only 5 years in.
For Byrd, Reid, and the rest of the Democrats to protest that the Senate rules are inviolable, when it?s clear that all they have in mind is their own political advantage, is the height of hypocrisy.
It?s time for the Senate Republicans to go nuclear. It?s time for the president and the GOP to enjoy the mandate they earned in the voting booth last fall.