Later this month, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in one of the most closely-watched cases in its history: the challenge to the 2010 Affordable Care Act. But in the weeks leading up to those arguments, another fight will be taking place in the U.S. Senate on an issue that in many ways parallels the health care debate, and offers an even clearer view of what have become the policy priorities of the Republican Party.
Since Obama became president, Republicans in Congress have made a clear and conscious choice to kill any attempts to cooperate with him to create solutions for the American people. They have chosen instead to devote themselves to be the party of opposing President Obama - on every issue, big and small. In doing so, they have thrown out not only the trust of the people who elected them, but many of their own formerly held principles.
Even ideas that originally came from Republicans, once adopted by the president become grounds for all-out partisan attacks. One such Republican idea was the individual mandate, which is now at the center of the legal and political challenges to the Affordable Care Act.
Ironically, the judicial branch - to which Republicans are turning with hopes that the policy they came up with is declared unconstitutional - is also at the heart of another stunning turnaround. Republicans used to talk about the importance of bipartisan cooperation in ensuring a fair and functioning judiciary. But that changed abruptly in January 2009, when the political party of the president changed.
When it comes to health care reform, Republicans have chosen to ignore their previous positions in an effort to stick it to the president.
When it comes to the functioning of the federal courts, they have so far chosen to do the same.
This week, Republicans in the Senate, after three years of obstructing nominees to the U.S. courts -- contributing to a historic vacancy crisis that affects over 160 million Americans -- will have to make the same choice. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced he will file petitions to end the filibusters of 17 nominees to district courts around the country, most long-stalled and unopposed. These, plus the two Obama nominees who have already been filibustered, represent nearly ten times the number of district court nominees who were filibustered under the last two presidents combined. The cumbersome process to end these filibusters will, if Republicans don't relent, tie up the Senate through early April.
During George W. Bush's presidency, Senate Republicans were near-universal in their condemnation of the filibusters of some of Bush's most extreme judicial nominees. Many went so far as to claim that filibustering judicial nominees was unconstitutional.
Once President Obama moved into the White House, it was remarkable how fast they changed their tune. They went overnight from decrying judicial filibusters, to using them wantonly -- not just to stall nominees to whom they found objections, but to stall all nominees , even those whom they favor. At this point in Bush's presidency, the average district court nominee waited 22 days between approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee and a vote from the full Senate. Under President Obama, the average wait has been more than four times longer - over three months.
This is gridlock for gridlock's sake: once Republicans allow them to come to a vote, the vast majority of the president's nominees have been confirmed with overwhelming bipartisan support, demonstrating that the opposition to these nominees was never about their qualifications.
This is more than an inside the beltway partisan game -- it has helped to create a historic vacancy crisis in the federal courts. Approximately one in ten federal courtrooms today sits empty because of Senate inaction. These vacancies create unmanageable workloads for sitting judges, which in turn cause unacceptable delays for Americans seeking their day in court. The Republican Party has been so intent on obstructing President Obama's agenda that they've been willing to sacrifice the smooth functioning of America's courts.
The health care debate highlights the importance of appointing judges who place their duty to the Constitution over a partisan agenda. But it also crystallizes the agenda of opposition that has caused the Republican Party to go off the deep end. When a party's only principle is to be opposed to the other party's agenda, it's the American people who end up paying the price.
Also, thanks for being honest about Obama. This is about his agenda. He could care less about what the majority of us want. Thank God the Republicans are standing in his way. And we need judges to sit in our courts, not activists. That's why the Repubs are blocking the appointments.
But I kind of hope they do.
As opposed to the Republicans who are turning their backs on business opportunities with China? Thanks for the laugh.
Had it been a law that capped the per consumer spending and THEN allowed more people covered, then it would be acceptable. This is a terrible and destructive law thaw will give one generation coverage and force the next generation into financial disaster.
Then I come here and read what the Right Wing is actually saying and chide myself for indulging in a fantasy world.
We may stipulate that historically Republicans were not the only ones to employ the Senate filibuster to thwart a presidential appointment of a federal judge. But the Republicans, by contrast, have chose to employ the tactic at a ratio of more than 10 times more than any precedent.
Republicans have not tried to disguise their evil malicious intent knowing the result is to cripple the federal judicial system for totally political imagined gain.
As a former attorney who spent almost 50 years in the system, serving occasionally in a judicial and semi judicial capacity, this practice of maliciously blocking routine judicial appointments is entirely subversive, and anti American. Its “5th column” sabotage.
Instead of helping us achieve a future they would choose to condemn us to a past.
I only address a point of your comment which is most vulnerable. The one about birth control.
I don’t know who could be a more reliable source of data from the standpoint of anti-Obama people than the private for profit health insurance companies.
They unanimously declare that the cost of covering contraception is totally dwarfed by the cost of unwanted and medically dangerous abortions and related medica procedures, miscarriages, etc.
They gain not lose by paying for birth control.
Who knew that the entire insurance industry was run by social engineering militant feminists who have or gestated a vast cover up to make it look like cheap prevention results in lower premiums than expensive treatment.
But if the GOP claims about the cost are true that's what must have happened.
Or maybe aliens?
My point exactly. The commentary out of progressive blog sites like HuffPo is that you have to be some corporate stool pigeon to oppose the purchase mandate, or worse, that Republicans having been wrong about it 20 years ago means anything about how wrong it is now.
And no, the "founding fathers" did not force the military to buy their own insurance. Congress, in 1798, required that duty collectors at ports collect a tax from a ship based on the number of sailors and the length of the tour, which was then to be rendered to the secretary of the treasury, then paid out to hospitals that provided for sick and disabled seamen. There was no "insurance".
That law was not based on the Commerce Clause, but rather Congress' maritime powers.
You can't have it both ways!!!
But given time, our health care system will implode in such a way that half the country won't be able to afford health care, and then we have the GOP option of simply allowing them to do without health care and die, or the better option of Medicare for all.