Bidden: Alito unlikely to face a filibuster

Posted on November 7, 2005

By Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A key Democrat said on Sunday that he expects the full Republican-led Senate to vote on U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito without the threat of a Democratic filibuster.

But Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware said a decision would not be made about such a possible procedural roadblock until more lawmakers meet with President George W. Bush’s conservative nominee to the nation’s highest court.

“My instinct is we should commit” to an up-or-down vote by the full Senate, said Biden, a member of the Judiciary Committee. “I think the probability is that will happen.

“I think that judgment won’t be made … until the bulk of us have had a chance to actually see him and speak to him,” Biden told ABC’s “This Week.”

The committee is set to begin a confirmation hearing on Alito, a federal appeals judge the past 15 years, on January 9.

My reaction: I hope he is correct in his “instinct.” However, I would advise everyone not to get their hopes up too much. The democrats are unpredictable, loony, and ruthless. A little pressure from a few of their special interest groups, and you could see them try anything to retain power. We just watched them with a suprise closed door session of Congress. We’ve got a long time before January. Don’t doubt it will be spent in an effort to dig up dirt.

Other reactions:

The Moderate Voice says…

A filibuster is sort of like a silver bullet: you can use it…perhaps more than once…but its use had better be warranted. It must have wider support than just a percentage (even a large percentage) of Democrats.

Captain’s Quarter’s says….

“People should find it easy to come to a judgment on Alito’s qualifications. Unlike Harriet Miers, he has a long track record of working on constitutional law as well as a solid career as a litigator, first as a prosecutor and later as an appellate attorney. He has spent the last 15 years as a federal jurist and has written plenty of opinions on many cases. This record shows him to have a splendid judicial temperament, excellent commitment to the law, a high level of legal erudition and scholarship, as well as having a more originalist/conservative philosophy of jurisprudence on the bench.”

The Stra-Sphere says…

If Alito goes through without a filibuster I think we can all call this issue over until 2006. Two supreme court nominations without the filibuster would pretty much indicate there is little chance of one in the near future.

Viking Pundit says…

The Democrats made the judicial fight unnecessarily larger than it needed to be and, now that they don’t have the votes, the climb down is worse. The Republicans (mostly Bill Frist) made the same mistake last week with Harry Reid’s Senate shutdown stunt, but at least the memory of that incident will be mercifully short. Samuel Alito’s Supreme Court seat will be a reminder for decades to come.