Just to follow up on the earlier post about whether there could be a court challenge to the nuclear option, here’s what readers have said.
The overwhelming majority of readers who wrote in — ranging from political junkies to con law profs (many of whom also seem to be political junkies) — agree with what I’ve said earlier: absolutely no way this ever gets into court.
A pretty small minority see some arguments that might at least get a hearing. But even they see it as highly unlikely. So all of this suggests that as a practical matter there’s no reason to think of this as a serious possibility in evaluating what’s transpiring in the senate today.
And just to reaffirm the point, for my part, I think that it certainly should be that way. (I’ll try to say more about this in a subsequent post.) This is, at root, a political question. And there’s a political remedy: at the ballot box in 2006.
Indeed, if the Democrats’ use of the filibuster is really such a bad thing, there’s a political remedy for the Republicans too: take it to the voters.
If Republicans believe in their argument and have some confidence about their political future they should take this to the voters next year and ask the voters for the five more senators to confirm any judge they want.
