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The lawyers who are on the track to become federal judges are "lawyers' lawyers" not political hacks. To drop a federal judicial nominee into a political battlefield is akin to making an accountant into a bullfighter. Yet, because the process has devolved into political purgatory because of a tyrannical minority in the U.S. Senate that insists upon an ideological litmus test, potential judicial nominees might think twice before subjecting themselves and their families to this obscene abuse.

Each of the filibustered nominees would have been approved by a simple majority vote but for the new supermajority vote requirement courtesy of Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Pat Leahy. Kennedy, et.al. demand a supermajority vote for those nominees they label "outside of the mainstream." In other words, nominees who don't agree with their activist agenda for the courts and happen to be potential candidates for the short list for the U.S. Supreme Court, will be called every disparaging name possible.

Earlier this month, the games began again in earnest in the Senate Judiciary Committee with the new chairman, Arlen Specter, who mistakenly believes that putting these nominees back in the lions' den for another round of hearings may sooth the opposition. Liberal groups predictably sent out their memos about their targets, Terrence Boyle and William Myers and the questioning in the hearings coincidentally echoed their complaints about Boyle on civil rights issues and Myers on environmental cases.

Chairman Specter will hopefully quickly realize that the olive branch he offers his leftist colleagues on the committee will be put through a wood chipper and that multiple hearings for the President's renominated judicial nominees are an exercise in futility.

The consequences of the obstruction for the nominees specifically and the federal judiciary as a whole are disastrous. Reforming the Senate rules to return to the constitutional option of a fair and simple up or down vote for all nominees is absolutely necessary to preserve the Constitution. If filibuster reform is not enacted, the story recounted above will continue with progressively worse results.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.

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