One Issue Focus May Shut Senate Down

Judges are important in the administration of justice. Judicial nominees deserve votes in committee and on the floor. Senators have a responsibility to hold up a nomination when they have a cause to desire closer scrutiny. However, none of this should shut down the entire business of the United States Senate.

The Democrats attempted this procedural maneuver by which you present a motion to limit committees to only work for two hours. This basically prevents any business from getting done because everything in the Senate goes through the committee process, unless the leadership agrees that it will proceed directly to the floor. This creates a danger with troops in the field because it will stop the authorization and appropriations process from moving forward.



The Republican leadership is now threatening to use this procedure to bring attention to the judicial nomination of Leslie Southwick, which is held up in the Judiciary Committee by Sen. Patrick Leahy. He wants to scrutinize her record more closely. That is ok and his responsibility. However, while the maneuver will bring attention to the nomination it will not get a vote any more quickly because if you restrict the work of the committee they will take longer to conduct another hearing as may be necessary or a meeting for discussion of the nomination.

A shutdown of the Senate to bring attention to the nomination also stops the Senate from working on other issues, such as immigration reform and the budget. If the committees are slowed, completely stopped, or the Senate is completely shut down over the nomination nothing can be completed.

The Republican leadership may do this because they know it will unite the Senators and the base in attacking the Democrats over not letting votes occur. However, we are discussing one nomination and not the majority. There have been a number of nominations voted on because they are being debated and approved.

It seems that we are discussing either one or a small handful of nominations that are controversial for one reason or another. These appointments should have intense but fair scrutiny because they are lifetime appointments. Shutting down the Senate is not the way to achieve this goal because it contributes to the problem of politicizing the nominations and also demeans the Senate as an institution.