The Reasoning Behind the “Conventional Warfare Option”
I’d like to elaborate a bit on the idea behind the “conventional warfare option” that I discussed yesterday (and in detail back in November). Two points:
1. Republicans need an option that is not called the “nuclear option.” As silly as it sounds, the “nuclear option” is problematic simply because it has a terrible name.
There is a vast group of squishy moderate voters out there who don’t much care about any issue, but who get nervous when it sounds like either side of the political aisle is doing something wacky. These uninformed folks far outnumber the people who actually understand what is going on in the judicial confirmation wars.
This is the group I am targeting with the proposal I have called the “conventional warfare option.” When you Joe and Jill Squishy that you are going to employ something called “the nuclear option,” they get nervous. (And don’t try calling it the “constitutional option.” It’s too late for that.) No matter how much sense it makes, the “nuclear option” sounds radical — and Joe and Jill don’t like anything that sounds radical.
Republicans need to make it clear to Joe and Jill that they are looking for every reasonable alternative to avoid deploying the nukes.
I am open to suggestions for a better name for the proposal. The best name would relate to my next point:
2. Republicans have to explain to voters that the Democrats are scared to go on the record.
The filibuster is not just a way to block judges. It is a “weasel option” that allows Senators to oppose a nominee without putting their opposition on the record. This is especially valuable to Democrats when it comes to voting on Bush’s minority and women nominees.
In the Democrats’ world, women and minorities are expected to embrace a leftist philosophy grounded in a sense of victimhood. Nominees like Miguel Estrada or Janice Rogers Brown scare the hell out of Democrats, because they are brilliant minorities who don’t toe the line. Democrats hate candidates like that, because they destroy their conception of how women and minorities ought to think.
At the same time, Democrats are scared to vote against such candidates, especially when they are clearly qualified. Democrats ran into a fair amount of flak from Hispanic interest groups over the Estrada nomination. Those groups could see through the transparently phony objections to Estrada, and wondered why Democrats were unwilling to vote for a qualified Hispanic.
It’s much easier to oppose a qualified minority judge through a filibuster than through a floor vote. Senators’ floor votes are public. They might have to be explained. Your typical Democrat Senator might have a hard time explaining why Janice Rogers Brown was mainstream enough to garner an overwhelming majority vote in liberal California — but not mainstream enough to confirm as a U.S. appellate judge.
So maybe the “conventional warfare option” should be called something like the “Go on the Record Option.”
That’s a terrible name. Get me a better one.
[…] enate Republicans are reading this blog. If they truly were, then they would have read my post on how to successfully execute the P.R. component […]
Patterico's Pontifications » Republicans to Employ “Conventional Warfare Option"? (0c6a63) — 5/14/2005 @ 10:20 pmThe Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way Option
The Hey, I found my backbone! Option
The I don’t give a darn what the press calls it Option
The Four years in committee? Yes, this is the government. Option
And finally (drum roll, please)
The Anti-Obstructionist Option
Lane Beneke (534807) — 5/5/2005 @ 7:49 amGood idea: get ’em to go on the record. But…how do you do that? Their response would probably be not to vote at all on the sense of the Senate motion. If a senator is in the chamber, does he have to vote? Can’t he just sit there and grin across the aisle at the folks who tried and failed to pin him down??
L. Barnes (3b2f78) — 5/5/2005 @ 8:19 amHow about the “State Your Case” option. It’s a “both sides should state their case and let the chips fall where they may” version that appeals to squishy moderates.
Or maybe “Debate or Vote” would do it?
Personally I like ‘constitutional option’, but you’re right, it is too late for that.
Giacomo (477b7f) — 5/5/2005 @ 9:01 amThe Miguel Estrada Option – the option which allows a simple yes/no vote on this nominee within 2 weeks.
Ladainian (91b3b2) — 5/5/2005 @ 9:42 am“There is a vast group of squishy moderate voters out there who don’t much care about any issue, but who get nervous when it sounds like either side of the political aisle is doing something wacky.”
Like saying this sort of stuff?
“In the Democrats’ world, women and minorities are expected to embrace a leftist philosophy grounded in a sense of victimhood. Nominees like Miguel Estrada or Janice Rogers Brown scare the hell out of Democrats, because they are brilliant minorities who don’t toe the line.”
actus (ebc508) — 5/5/2005 @ 9:58 am“In the Democrats’ world, women and minorities are expected to embrace a leftist philosophy grounded in a sense of victimhood. Nominees like Miguel Estrada or Janice Rogers Brown scare the hell out of Democrats, because they are brilliant minorities who don’t toe the line.”
Given your opinions regarding the Democrats’ position on this issue, I think “The Nuclear Option” is both the most accurate, as well as simply the most honest, name you could possibly give it.
By the way, I think the Conservative Republics are being very foolish by taking such an extreme stand. Filibusters, legislative or judicial, are designed to protect the minority party against the tryanny of the majority. One day (yes I know you dont really believe it) the pendulum will swing and the Reps will be a minority party again. May not happen for a generation, but one day it will happen. When it does, you will glad if a judicial filibuster is still there.
Mark Key (0ead32) — 5/5/2005 @ 10:45 amI’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: remove all the bluster and call it what it is: the no-filibuster option. Everyone knows what a filibuster is, and if they don’t, none of these other names are going to help anyway. Especially not “conventional warfare option,” both because it’s misleading (it’s just as “nuclear” as the “nuclear” option) and because anyone who is all that bothered by the N-word is not going to be too keen on any other name that alludes to civil war.
Xrlq (ffb240) — 5/5/2005 @ 10:55 amMark – A nuclear weapon kills 100,000 people. This is not the same as overriding a filibuster, allowing a vote to be taken.
“The Nuclear Option” is both the most accurate, as well as simply the most honest, name you could possibly give it.
Ladainian (91b3b2) — 5/5/2005 @ 1:14 pmThe A bomb option
The Star Wars option
The Belsen Belsen solution
The Final Solution to the Liberal Question
The toilet option
The cancel their credit cards attack
All would work and people would love the GOP.
Howard Veit (baba22) — 5/5/2005 @ 1:35 pmActus, you don’t think liberals jump all over minorities who oppose affirmative action?
It’s wacky for you to deny that, not for me to point it out.
Patterico (2aa5f3) — 5/5/2005 @ 1:42 pmI’m really confused with this “tyranny of the majority” angle. I have always thought our form of government was based on majority rule. Why, when it comes to judicial nominees, is majority rule somehow tyranical?
Jackie Warner (95d9f3) — 5/5/2005 @ 4:19 pmI like the “State Your Case” and “Debate or Vote” options.
I would add for consideration:
Stand Your Ground Option
Stand and Be Counted Option
Les Serious (but making a point):
Tell Me Why On National TV in Prime-Time Option
Stop “Wagging the Dog” Option
Why did Tom Daschle Lose Option
Which Senator is Most Experienced in the Filibuster and What Did He Use It for Option
Concerning “Protecting the Minority from the Tyranny of the Majority”. I have seen that used before, and it has a nice ring to it, but doesn’t hold up to serious thinking. Taken at face value, it would suggest that the more “minor” the minority, the more protection is needed (which does seem how one side of the debate wants it). Hence, a minority of only 20% needs more protection than a minority of 46%. So we guarantee a minority veto???
To those who think the Dems are doing the right thing, go down to Mississippi and talk to African Americans over 40, especially this fellow named Charles Evers (I heard he grew up with someone who fought for civil rights), and tell me why again Charles Pickering was opposed. I have not known “60 Minutes” to slant too many stories to the Republicans, and from what they reported on Pickering it seems completely immoral, scandalous, and disgusting to label as racist a man who risked his life and the lives of his family to fight racism while the Democrats in Congress were trying to block civil rights legislation!!!!
MD in Philly (1b0bc5) — 5/5/2005 @ 5:14 pmI meant to add one thing before thinking about Charles Pickering made me angry.
As said by Madison and John Adams and others, what makes our form of government and society thrive and protects the minority is the majority being a people of virtue (I’m not talking political party majority and minority). When the lack of virtue (honesty, integrity, self-control over greed and lust) is such that one’s hope is in twists and turns of parliamentary procedure you had better “bar the door”.
MD in Philly (1b0bc5) — 5/5/2005 @ 5:24 pmThe real “Nuclear Option” was the decision by Democrats in 2003 to filibuster judges. It was such an attack on the comity of the Senate that nearly any Republican response is less drastic.
BTW, who coined that awful phrase for the simple act of asking the chair to clarify a rule?
Of course, what the Republicans have been doing so far might as well be called “Duck and Cover”.
Kevin Murphy (6a7945) — 5/6/2005 @ 12:40 amTo Ladainian re the name “Nuclear Option”- it’s a metaphore, dude. “Conventional Warfare Option” wasnt meant literally either (was it?). But calling it the “CWO” implies some degree of a willingness to be moderate in confronting the other side (else, why hold back your biggest weapon?)- and, given the views that Patterico expresses above, I just dont see it.
To the rest of you, re protecting the minority from the majority- this is a well established tradtion of American government. It’s the reason we have a bi-cameral legislature, for example, with a Senate that gives equal representation to all states regardless of population. Or take the electoral college- if we didnt have it we might as well just let California, New York and Texas elect the president. Senatorial filibuster is in the same vein. As to why we need to worry about this, this is quoted from the Federalist Papers #51:
“It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.”
and again:
“In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradnally induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful.”
Mark Key (0ead32) — 5/6/2005 @ 10:05 amRegarding comment by Mark Key on the need for protection of the minority against the majority, it seems to me that the quotes from the Federalist Papers that he cites have more to do with the rule of law than simply protecting the minority from the majority.
Jackie Warner (95d9f3) — 5/6/2005 @ 4:27 pmJust goes to show you that even factions can quote from the Federalist Papers.
Kevin Murphy (6a7945) — 5/6/2005 @ 11:31 pmWow, you couldn’t have come up with a more accurate description of the exact opposite of what the Founders believed. Do you have a cite for Madison saying anything like what you described? Because what I have seen him say (in Federalist 51) was “if all men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” The Founders believed strongly in the fallibility of man, and so set up a government that would not allow power to concentrate too much in any one area of the government, where it could be abused.
Madison also was the one who coined the phrase “tyranny of the majority”. I’ve always read it as meaning not that a small minority should be able to dictate the actions of a majority, but rather that since government is an imperfect instrument for expressing the People’s long-term interests, we should not assume that a mere majority is in all cases sufficient to express our wishes. That’s the reasoning behind all the constitutional devices specifically designed to slow things down (the Senate, the amendment process, etc.) While the filibuster may not have been invented by the Founders, it is entirely consistent with the ideals of the Constitution they designed, especially as it applies to lifetime appointments to another branch of government.
Zorro for the Common Good
Zorro for the Common Good (141a80) — 5/7/2005 @ 9:54 pmHere is the quote as I found it:
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.
John Adams US diplomat & politician (1735 – 1826)
In searching for documentation, this was one reference:http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/14102.html
The point being that yes, the founders believed in the fallibility (even the fallenness) of man (as opposed to a belief in the basic goodness of man), and set up a government with “checks and balances”. The quote by Adams makes the claim that even though the US government has these checks and balances, to a degree even the functioning of these are not geared to control tyrants and rogues who get into power.
As many things, it appears that tyranny is in the eye of the beholder. When 5 of 9 people decide that the will of the Congress and the President, all elected “by the people”, is wrong, it is heralded as “protection against the tyranny of the majority” (by those who agree with the 5 of 9). Those who were of the majority of the populace who elected congressmen, senators, and a President to enact such legislation call it the tyranny of the oligarchy.
MD in Philly (b3202e) — 5/8/2005 @ 7:56 pmAreas like abortion and homosexual marriages, dealt with through “advancement” or “interpretation” of constitutional law and judicial fiat, opens up the grave and serious need to nominate, select and block judges based on ideology than ability. This itself would suggest that, constitutional scribes and judges, are getting it wrong that, such issues and the like, can & should be settled through common law interpretation of the constitution cloaking and giving expression to ideology of the judges.
Should the pendulum self correct itself and swing more to the center, with the weight shifted from judicial fiat to legislative measures, the focus on selecting judges of the “appropriate ideology” would diminish, with more appropriate focus on ability than ideology.
Incidentally, homosexual marriages is dealt with through judicial fiat in Canada, but not so much elsewhere. In the lead states in EU which deals with this, it is through legislative measures. To what I recall, NZ judiciary too declined and rightly so. Any subject matter can be made out to be a matter of constitutional interpretation, if self restraint is not exercised, nor if the jurisprudence is not laid out for such restraint.
Is the electoral loss a sign of the need for the pendulum to self correct itself?
How long can the pendulum stay at the end that it is at right now?
Is this the balanced central position of the pendulum or a current swing over 200 years to one far end of the pendulum?
Yi-Ling (4a1caa) — 5/8/2005 @ 11:57 pm