by Matt Barr

Alito confirmed; Kerry yet to concede

I found this presentation of data on Democrats' cloture votes interesting mostly because it doesn't really lend itself to an if X, then Y association. It looks like a lot of Democrats up for re-election voted for cloture, I guess; maybe that's the extent of the lesson.

But what I will say -- again -- is this: when the filibuster is eliminated in the next couple years, probably upon Mr. Justice Stevens' retirement, there's going to be all this bawling about Senate tradition. Traditionally, if you wanted to filibuster something -- if you wanted to continue debate -- you had to say something. If all 24 of those Democrats still had something to say about the Alito nomination, it's an affront to democracy that they weren't allowed to speak. Dissent stiflers!

Of course, none of them had anything to say, ever, and the "filibuster" has become a procedural trick that effectively requires a supermajority for anything to get done. Quite unlike most of the Senate's history. So save your appeals to tradition, or make people who want to continue debate debate.

Browse books from Amazon.com:
Supreme+Court