That’s the title of my new Confirmation Tales post, which presents the Senate’s longstanding strong consensus against partisan filibusters of judicial nominations—the consensus that preceded Senate Democrats’ decision in 2003 to filibuster George W. Bush’s nomination of Miguel Estrada to a D.C. Circuit seat. From my opening:
That history [prior to 2003] may be summarized in several overlapping propositions:
- It was extremely rare even to have a cloture vote on a judicial nomination.
- No judicial nomination had ever been defeated by a minority party’s blockage of cloture.
- No lower-court judicial nomination had ever been derailed by the failure of a cloture vote.
- Leaders of a political party in the Senate had never demanded that party members block cloture on a judicial nomination.
I go on to address seven nominations in particular that might be thought to test these propositions.
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