Broken Confirmation Process
The Urgent Need for Reform
By Daniel Muniz

The confirmation process of a Supreme Court justice is a circus. The role of the senate has become nothing more than a theater stage to showcase useless drama. The entire procedure needs to be streamlined so that debate is limited and that a direct “up and down” vote be established.

The process itself doesn’t accomplish anything except for producing theatrics and political posturing.

Nominees are tight-lipped and well scripted far in advance about what they are going to say as well as to what they will omit. And it is obvious that they really cannot say what is on their mind because of the political opportunism involved. In addition, political opponents and the media are hungry for any gaffes and missteps instead of placing a focus on substance.

Even so, the nominees are not being duplicitous.

Instead, they are conforming to a strict political paradigm that our political process created. Its own rewards and punishments and the nominees know full well that stepping outside of the paradigm will unleash harsh punishments while staying inside will eventually produce the reward of confirmation.

Overall, it is the senators who are disingenuous.

Our elected officials are political animals who must abide by their political instincts which is entirely contingent on their geography and their constituency. Senators from safe states are allowed to say anything incendiary and inflammatory without fear of repercussions.

And sadly, even before debate begins, a number of senators have already made up their mind without even listening to any testimony or questioning. That is perhaps the biggest tragedy of the hearings.

Special interest groups also play a huge role in the confirmation process. These organizations are adamant about spending large sums of money to fill the airwaves with their acrimonious dissent.

And finally, the media loves any kind of controversy; real or imagined, because of the kind of publicity it can generate. The outcome is totally irrelevant to the press because of the enormous publicity a controversy can generate. The press loves extremes and they love for people to be vilified and smeared, especially since it makes good headlines. And they also enjoy reporting the outrageous accusations and baseless allegations.

The broken process needs to be replaced with a more practical solution instead of an idealistic one. The Democratic senator from Illinois, Barak Obama explained his blunt pragmatism in this way:

Regardless of which political party you belong to, that is the brutal truth that cannot be avoided.

Whenever Republicans have the votes in the senate to confirm a nominee and they have their president in the White House to nominate anyone of their choosing, they then have the ability to put anyone in the Supreme Court. That is what happens when a political party wins a majority of seats in the senate and wins the presidency. All the complaining and vilifying from Democrats isn’t going to change that. And of course, the inverse is also true when it is the other way around.

That is why the lengthy confirmation process needs to be eliminated. When it comes right down to it, politics is what determines the vote and that is the way it should always be instead of the bogus “show and tell” that we have today.

Even some Democrats who are frustrated by the harsh reality end up submitting to it. Democratic senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia explained that he hails from a conservative state. Ultimately, that simple but harsh reality compelled him to vote for Samuel Alito for his own political survival.

And the same goes for Republicans from liberal states as in the case like with former senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.

The bottom line is that vilifying allies and opponents doesn’t serve the public any good. It just makes the political process ugly and unruly.

Republicans have done their part whenever they had their numbers in the senate. They also have conservative constituencies in very red states like West Virginia that exert tremendous influence of Democrats.

If the Democrats don’t like it, then tough!

If Democrats want to change it, then they need to start winning elections instead of complaining. That is what Republicans did.

Confirming a Supreme Court justice comes down to numbers and politics.

Republicans have spent decades in the political doghouse. Then they started winning elections and winning presidencies. If Democrats want Liberal justices confirmed, then they need to heed the advice of one of their own and begin convincing more people to vote for them.

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