Yet another GOP broken promise

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Breaking Faith

“I will not vote to deny a vote to a Democratic president’s judicial nominee just because the nominee may have views more liberal than mine.”

That was Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, promising in 2003 not to filibuster judicial nominees for reasons of ideology. But on Thursday, Mr. Alexander, along with 41 other Senate Republicans, voted to filibuster one of President Obama’s judicial nominees for that very reason — breaking a promise and kindling yet another row over a president’s right to appoint like-minded judges.

The fight was over Goodwin Liu, a Berkeley law professor nominated by the president for a seat on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He lost on a vote of 52 to 43, short of the 60-vote requirement demanded by Republicans.

He became the first Obama nominee to be successfully filibustered, and the only nominee since 2005. That year, a Senate “Gang of 14” agreed that such nominees should be allowed an up-or-down majority vote except in extraordinary circumstances.

The group was correct in preserving the right to filibuster the most extreme candidates, but the agreement is meaningless if senators are going to define someone like Mr. Liu as a legal extremist. He is, not surprisingly, a liberal thinker who is nonetheless squarely in the legal mainstream, having even received the support of strong conservatives, including Kenneth Starr and Clint Bolick.

What, specifically, made him so extraordinary that he was not worthy of an up-or-down vote? The Republican argument against him is laughably thin. “He believes the Constitution is a fluid, evolving document,” said Jeff Sessions of Alabama. John Cornyn of Texas falsely accused Mr. Liu of holding the “ridiculous view that our Constitution somehow guarantees a European-style welfare state.”

But other Republicans were more forthcoming about the real reason for the blockade: Mr. Liu dared to criticize Justice Samuel Alito Jr. as harshly conservative before he was confirmed to the Supreme Court. The filibuster apparently was payback, and the Republican eagerness for revenge has broken faith and a clear understanding on the Senate floor. That will make it harder to fill benches during this administration and many more to come.
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