{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.alexander.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=NewsArticles&ContentRecord_id=0095c70b-f7e9-4c25-9cb7-b62992bb6104", "Washington Post: Op-ed by Sen. Alexander: Without the filibuster, a tyranny of the majority", "2013-11-25", "2013", "2013-11", "Republican", "House", "TN", "Lamar Alexander", "A000360", "www.alexander.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Thursday\u2019s stunning\u00a0rules change by Senate Democrats\u00a0can best be described as Obamacare II: another exercise of partisan political power to permit the majority to do whatever it wants. This time, the goal was advancing its agenda unchecked through the courts and executive agencies.\r\nWith all Republican members opposed, the Senate voted 52 to 48 to invoke the \u201cnuclear option,\u201d allowing a majority of senators present and voting (so, not necessarily 51) to approve presidential nominees except for Supreme Court justices. For those positions, this eliminated the\u00a0filibuster, which required 60 votes to proceed to an up-or-down majority vote.\r\nThis was the most dangerous restructuring of Senate rules since\u00a0Thomas Jefferson wrote them. It creates a perpetual opportunity for \u201ctyranny of the majority,\u201d which Alexis de Tocqueville called one of the greatest threats to American democracy.\r\nAs Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) noted, quoting former senator Arthur Vandenberg on Thursday: \u201cIf a majority of the Senate can change its rules at any time, there are no rules.\u201d It is as if the Red Sox, finding themselves behind in the ninth, added a few innings to make sure they could defeat the Cardinals in the World Series. Future majorities could, for example, end the filibuster for legislation, removing any obstacle to tyranny of the majority.\r\nDemocrats offered flimsy excuses, many of which are untrue:\r\nExcuse No. 1: President Obama\u2019s appointees have been unfairly denied seats by failed cloture votes, or filibusters.\r\nAccording to the\u00a0Congressional Research Service, no Supreme Court nominee has been defeated by filibuster in the Senate. None. (An arguable exception is\u00a0Abe Fortas\u2019s doomed nomination\u00a0as chief justice, about which President Lyndon Johnson engineered a face-saving cloture vote.)\r\nThe number of federal district judge and Cabinet nominees defeated by filibuster? Zero. Regarding sub-Cabinet nominees, there were two for President Obama, three for George W. Bush and two for Bill Clinton. That\u2019s it.\r\nAs for appeals court judges, Republican filibusters have blocked five, but that happened only after Democrats first blocked five. Beginning in 2003, Democrats blocked 10 Bush nominees. This was the first time that a president\u2019s circuit court nominees were blocked by the failure to obtain cloture. Republicans considered the nuclear option, decided against it, and five of the 10 were confirmed.\r\nExcuse No. 2: President Obama\u2019s nominees have waited too long for confirmation.\r\nAccording to the Congressional Research Service, Obama\u2019s second-term Cabinet nominees have been confirmed at about the same pace as those of Presidents Clinton and Bush.\r\nThis year, the Senate has confirmed 36 of Obama\u2019s second-term nominees to circuit and district courts, compared with 14 for Bush at this point in 2005.\r\nOn Friday, the Senate\u2019s executive calendar listed 54 nominees who have been waiting less than three weeks for confirmation, 16 who had waited for up to nine weeks and only eight who have been waiting more than nine weeks. Two of those eight nominees were being \u201cheld\u201d by Democratic senators.\r\nExcuse No. 3: Republican obstruction left the Democratic majority leader unable to act.\r\nOnly Democratic committee majorities can place nominees on the executive calendar. Only the majority leader can move their confirmation. He may do so anytime he chooses.\r\nWhat if obstructionist Republicans were to place holds on 10 sub-Cabinet nominees? Under the rules that existed before Thursday, the majority leader could have filed a cloture motion on those nominees on Monday and confirmed them by Friday \u2014 unless 41 Republicans voted against cloture. Again, that has happened to only two Obama nominees for non-judicial sub-Cabinet positions and only seven times in Senate history.\r\nIn his last Senate speech, former majority leader Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) warned against destroying the filibuster, which he called the \u201cnecessary fence\u201d against the executive and popular passions. Majority leaders could do whatever they needed to do under the rules, Byrd said.\r\nExcuse No. 4: Republicans have unfairly blocked the president from filling vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.\r\nIn 2006, Democrats insisted on doing precisely what Republicans are asking in 2013: moving judges from courts where they are not needed to where they are needed most. They did not think this unfair then.\r\nIn 2006, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, including Sens. Patrick Leahy, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin, said that \u201cunder no circumstances\u201d should new judges be confirmed to the D.C. court because its workload was half the national average and there were judicial emergencies elsewhere.\r\nWith Bush\u2019s approval, the Senate reduced the number of seats on the D.C. Circuit by one, moving that slot to the 9th Circuit. The D.C. Circuit hears fewer cases today than it did in 2007.\r\nSo why would Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) engineer a rules change that he said in 2006 \u201cwould be the end of the Senate\u201d? Because the vote was not about the filibuster. It was about permitting the majority to do whatever it wants.\r\nCall it Obamacare II, for which the only cure is a referendum next November.\r\nRead more about this topic: Dana Milbank: Democrats\u2019 power grab Ruth Marcus: The Democrats\u2019 mistake The Post\u2019s View: The \u2018nuclear\u2019 fallout Eugene Robinson: Forced to go \u2018nuclear\u2019 Jennifer Rubin: \u2018Nuclear option\u2019 has many consequences James Downie: The GOP has only itself to blame\r\nLamar Alexander, a Republican, represents Tennessee in the Senate.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.alexander.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=NewsArticles&ContentRecord_id=0095c70b-f7e9-4c25-9cb7-b62992bb6104"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.7777748871594667, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}