Democrat Hypocrisy on Filibusters

Hat Tip to Matt at Blogs for Bush for pointing me to this post by Patrick Ruffini Over the weekend, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell unceremoniously inserted himself into the debate over judicial nominations, and his stance against the limiting filibusters were greeted uncritically in mainstream media.

In this weekend's coverage, this is how Mitchell characterized his time as Senate Majority Leader vis a vis the filibuster:

Mitchell said: “Our system of checks and balances is in place for a very good reason. It works. It protects all Americans.”

“During the six years that I served as Senate majority leader, Republicans often used filibusters to achieve their objectives,” Mitchell said. “I didn’t always agree with the results, but I accepted them and we were able to work together on many important issues.

But here's Mitchell on December 2, 1994, speaking to CNN's Bob Franken, reflecting on his tenure in his final days as Majority Leader:

The Senate is unique among legislative institutions in the world, in part because of two rules - one, the unlimited right of debate, which can become a filibuster, and the unrestricted right of amendment.

I think we should keep them, but we should limit the opportunities for their use much more than is now the case. To give you an example - not just an example - to cite some facts to illustrate the need for this, in the entire 19th Century, there were only 16 filibusters, one every six and a half years. In most of this century, they occurred less than once a year. In this Congress just concluded, there were 72 times that we had to file motions to end filibusters.

Note: he does not say Republicans blocked 72 measures, he just said that there were 72 times cloture was invoked to limit discussion, and thereby overcome a possible fillibuster. Also the Republicans NEVER used the fillibuster to block Judicial appointments.

But I think the appropriate course is to say that we retain those provisions which make the Senate the unique institution it is, but we reform them in a way that doesn't lend itself to abuse of those procedures, as occurred in this past Congress.

If the Dems are able to intimidate the Republicans not to use the so-called "Nuclear Option" to prevent use of a fillibuser to block Judicial Appointments, do you think there is ANY chance that if the situation is reversed, and if a Democratic President finds a Democratic Senate can't approve his Judicial Appointments because Republicans are blocking them with a fillibuster that they won't invoke the Nuclear Option? I suspect they will even use it to block the use of the fillibuster on legislation they want passed, something the Republicans have never suggested be done.