Sometimes, good news can be found in the strangest places - even the United States Senate. Yesterday, the Senate avoided reopening a political can of worms with the decisive defeat of an attempt by Mass. senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy to filibuster the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. A vote of 72-25 stopped floor debate, ensuring that Alito will receive an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor, probably today.
As a majority of senators have already announced their intentions to vote for Alito's confirmation, his ascension to the bench - and a much-needed political victory for President Bush - are virtually guaranteed.
While opponents of the Alito nomination will be understandably disappointed by Senate Democrats' pathetic last-ditch attempts to derail the nomination, or at least effectively demonstrate Alito's myriad flaws, we can all at least take heart that the Senate had enough sense to avoid yet another fight over the filibuster.
Who could forget the vicious rhetoric of early last summer, the accusations of hypocrisy and opportunism, the threats of implementing the "nuclear option," and ultimately the anticlimax of the Roberts confirmation? We should not relish a return to that toxic political environment. Toying with the filibuster can only take place on a slippery slope, and Alito-although certainly a troubling nominee-is not extreme enough to risk the filibuster's death.
Far more than any of the Senate's other diverse and confusing procedural rules, the filibuster (from a Dutch word for "pirate") has become that rare political object of both love and hate from both sides of the aisle at any given time. The minority worships it, and the majority demonizes it, no matter which side fills those roles.
The filibuster is both necessary and a nuisance, the space between its utility and its abuse demarcated by barbed wire. But the filibuster is crucial to moderation of the political process, and we should be thankful that Kerry and Kennedy were unable to garner enough support for yesterday's ill-advised attempt.
The unfortunate reality of Alito is that he is too alarming a nominee to avoid controversy, but not quite awful enough to merit the requisite outrage for a filibuster. He is no Bork. Alito should not be a Supreme Court Justice, but he should also not be cause for the "nuclear option" of eliminating the filibuster.
Imagine a Senate without the opportunity for the filibuster. Imagine that President Bush had had the chance to nominate a Supreme Court nominee without the possibility of a debilitating block of Senate business. Alito would seem like a leftist compared to whatever conservative caveman could sail through a Frist-lubricated Senate unencumbered by the filibuster.
This is what the Federalist Society dreams about, but it is a nightmare for anyone who thinks the New Deal, affirmative action, privacy rights or the First Amendment might have been good ideas. Like most safeguards, the filibuster would not be missed until it is gone.
There are, of course, other reasons to be happy about the failure of yesterday's filibuster attempt. Most importantly, it means the Senate can actually continue to do its work instead of engaging in a bloody fight over procedure. As Rhode Island Republican senator Lincoln Chafee said yesterday, "How are we going to get anything done if we can't work together?"
In a Congress that in the past year spent more time debating steroid use in major league baseball than it spent questioning drastic spending cuts on levee repairs in the gulf region, Chafee's is a refreshing point of view, especially from someone opposed to Alito's confirmation.
The extreme partisan character of today's political environment rarely allows for common sense to be exercised, but yesterday's defeat of the filibuster attempt shows a promising realization on the part of many senators that sometimes debate for its own sake can be a deceptively risky proposition.
