Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid’s recent decision to scrap the filibuster is the
culmination of a long escalation of partisan tensions in Washington. You could
place the origin of this war where you like: Ted Kennedy’s smearing of Robert
Bork, Mitch McConnell’s expanded use of filibusters, the growing alignment of
the party along ideological lines or the centralization of government power in
Washington.
I prefer to
start the story with the time Democrats filibustered a qualified nominee for
the crime of being Hispanic. Go back to
February 2003, the first weeks of a new Republican majority in the Senate, when
Democrats were blocking a vote on D.C. court nominee Miguel Estrada. Liberal
writer Dahlia Lithwick at Slate covered the upheaval around the filibuster and
chastised Republicans for “the grotesque claim that Estrada is being blocked
because he is Hispanic.”.....To Read More....
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