Susan Collins tried, and failed, to negotiate a deal to avert the nuclear option on Gorsuch
It's on?
Dan Calabrese , Bio and Archives--April 6, 2017
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“The negotiations with which I was heavily involved have failed to come up with a compromise, which saddens me. There’s so little trust between the two parties that it was very difficult to put together an agreement that would avert changing the rules,” Collins told reporters. “I worked very hard over the weekend, as did several Democrats and several Republicans, but we were not able to reach an agreement,” Collins added, estimating that about 10 lawmakers were involved. She said she had calls as late as midnight and as early as 6:30 a.m. and worked all weekend “exchanging language," but couldn't reach a compromise. Collins said she will ask colleagues to sign a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) pledging opposition to eliminating the power to filibuster legislation. #, who led the talks from the Democratic side, said the talks failed because of a lack of trust. “I invested a lot of time in the last week in meeting with, talking to and exchanging ideas with both Republicans and Democrats,” he said. “At the end of the day there were a few key sticking points, one was the lack of trust because of the way Merrick Garland was treated.”
We dealt with this on Monday, but Merrick Garland was not mistreated in any way. He simply wasn't confirmed, and the manner in which Republicans chose to not confirm him - not giving him a hearing or a vote - was much more honest than what Democrats are now trying to do to Gorsuch. If Democrats want to blame "lack of trust" for insisting on a filibuster that's going to kill all future filibusters for Supreme Court confirmations, they're welcome to go right ahead. The outcome is likely to be disastrous for their side, and that seems like an awfully silly thing to do just because you got dinged last year and you're still mad about it. As long as Gorsuch ends up on the Court, I don't really care how they do it. And if nuking the filibuster makes it easier to replace a liberal Justice with a conservative one down the road, so much the better. What I can't understand is the way some in the Senate cling to these arcane traditions like they're the greatest thing on Earth. The filibuster as presently applied makes it damn near impossible for the Senate to pass just about anything but the most mundane procedural matters. And if decide to filibuster, you don't even really have to filibuster. They don't make the minority party stand on the floor of the Senate talking for hours and hours and hours . . . they just say, hey, everything needs 60 votes.
Why they want to preserve this, even for legislation, is beyond me. You've got a minority party right now that is willing to block almost anything President Trump wants to do, simply out of spite over losing the election. The nation faces major problems in the areas of debt, health care, energy and taxation, but because of this stupid filibuster it's almost impossible to solve any of these problems. What is it about the grand traditions of the Senate that are so wonderful we have to keep this thing in place, in spite of its harmful effect on the country? Sometimes I think a lot of senators serve the Senate as an institution more so than they serve the United States as a nation. The breakdown of these negotiations to save the filibuster on Supreme Court confirmations is very good news. I just hope that at some point they can get rid of it for everything else too.
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Dan Calabrese——Bio and Archives
Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain
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