Earlier today, Eric Kleefeld reported that several still-serving Republicans had cast votes more than 10 years ago on Sotomayor’s nomination to the appellate court. In 1998, 23 Republicans voted for confirmation. Eight of them (including now-Democrat Arlen Specter) still serve in the Senate today. At the same time, 29 Republicans voted against her, 11 of whom are still in office.
Among those 11 are several who, in addition to opposing Sotomayor also are on record opposing the idea that judicial nominations should be filibustered.
“Since the founding of the Republic, we have understood that there was a two-thirds supermajority for ratification and advice and consent on treaties and a majority vote for judges,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), in a floor speech on May 23, 2005. “That is what we have done. That is what we have always done. But there was a conscious decision on behalf of the leadership, unfortunately, of the Democratic Party in the last Congress to systematically filibuster some of the best nominees ever submitted to the Senate. It has been very painful.” Sessions is now the Judiciary Committee’s ranking member.
And there’s more.
In an April 25, 2005 appearance on Meet the Press, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ)–now the Senate Minority Whip–said, “For 214 years it has been the tradition of the Senate to approve judicial nominees by a majority vote.”
Many of our judges and, for example, Clarence Thomas, people might recall, was approved by either fifty-one or fifty-two votes as I recall. It has never been the rule that a candidate for judgeship that had majority support was denied the ability to be confirmed once before the Senate. It has never happened before. So we’re not changing the rules in the middle of the game. We’re restoring the 214-year tradition of the Senate because in the last two years Democrats have begun to use this filibuster. […] This is strictly about whether or not a minority of senators is going to prevent the president from being able to name and get confirmed judges that he chooses after he’s been elected by the American people. And it’s never been the case until the last two years that a minority could dictate to the majority what they could do.
And, in a May 19, 2005 floor speech, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)–now Senate Minority Leader–said “[the] President’s judicial nominees, after full debate, deserve a simple up-or-down vote.”
I know that some of our colleagues wish that restoration of this principle were not required. But it is a measured step that my friends on the other side of the aisle have unfortunately made necessary. For the first time in 214 years, they have changed the Senate’s ‘advise and consent’ responsibilities to ‘advise and obstruct.’ […]Given those results, many of us had hoped that the politics of obstruction would have been dumped in the dustbin of history. Regretfully, that did not happen.
Hat tip to Media Matters for those quotes, and much more. Of course, these sorts of past statements don’t always imply anything about a politician’s position when the balance of power in Washington has shifted. In May 2005, after the Gang of 14 came to their famous compromise, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who also voted against Sotomayor, called filibustering judicial nominees unconstitutional. Late last month, though, he promised to filibuster a different Obama judicial nominee–David Hamilton–once his nomination clears the judiciary committee.
