海角大神

Politico is reporting that Senate Republicans are considering taking moves made by the Democrats when they controlled the Senate even further and聽abolishing the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees:

From a tactical point of view, it鈥檚 unclear why either party would want to change the rule at this point in time. Republicans really have no need for the filibuster, since they control the majority in the Senate, and on the Senate Judiciary Committee, of course, and thus are able to have a significant voice in whatever nominations President Obama makes to the nation鈥檚 highest court without having to resort to the filibuster. Democrats, meanwhile, are highly unlikely to have any desire to want to filibuster any candidate that President Obama would put forward. Similarly, if the GOP manages to聽hold on to the Senate in 2016 but the Democrats win the White House, then the filibuster will be largely irrelevant in terms of how a potential Supreme Court nomination is treated. If the GOP loses the Senate, though, then they would likely come to regret getting rid of the filibuster for high court nominations. The point at which getting rid of the filibuster could become an issue for Republicans would be if the GOP wins the White House and Democrats were to attempt to filibuster Republican Supreme Court nominees. Even at that point, though, Republicans would need to keep in mind that they would one day again be in the minority and ask themselves if they really want to deprive themselves of this procedural tool. Democrats underwent a similar debate when they made the rules changes that eliminated the filibuster for non-judicial appointees and judicial appointees below the Supreme Court level and made the choice to go forward, of course, but we have yet to see if they will come to regret that move should the GOP retake the White House in the future.

As聽Jazz Shaw聽notes, then, even suggesting this idea evidences no small degree of confidence on the part of Republicans such as Blunt regarding the GOP鈥檚 prospects in the Senate in 2016, but it strikes me that this confidence may be just a bit optimistic. Before the election, I noted that聽Republicans face a far different Senate field in 2016 than they did in 2014,聽due in no small part to the fact that they will be required to defend seats that they won in 2010 that may be harder to defend in a presidential election year. Among the most vulnerable Republicans next year will be Mark Kirk in Illinois, Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, and Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. Also potentially vulnerable, or at least likely to face strong opponents, are Rob Portman in Ohio and Marco Rubio in Florida, who may or may not run for reelection depending upon his presidential intentions. Democrats would need a net pickup of five seats to retake the Senate in 2016 and while this seems unlikely as we sit here today, it鈥檚 not beyond the realm of possibility, especially if the Democratic presidential nominee proves to have strong coattails in the states noted above to pull Democratic Senate candidates to victory. This is one reason why Republicans were fortunate that their victory in 2014 was so all-encompassing; a 51-49 or 52-48 majority would have been far more vulnerable than the current GOP majority of 54-46 is likely to be. Nonetheless, it seems to me to that the GOP is being awfully optimistic if it鈥檚 already planning for a majority that lasts through 2019, at least.

Doug Mataconis appears on the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.