Eye Recommend --- A Process at the Breaking Point

A PROCESS AT THE BREAKING POINT, by Steve Benen -- 
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/process-the-breaking-point

Last week I wrote about Senate Republicans using the filibuster rule to prohibit President Obama from filling three empty seats on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit:  http://whateyethynk-politics.blogspot.com/2013/11/republican-judgeship-denial-is-it.html 

I pointed out that there was no question of his nominees' worthiness, even among Republican Senators.  All the President's nominees easily made it out of the Judiciary Committee with bi-partisan support before being stopped by Republicans insisting  on 60 votes instead of a simple majority. (All three nominees would have won their seats with a simple majority.) 

Presidents appoint judges.  It's part of their job.   H.W. Bush did it.  Clinton did it.  And W did it.  But Senate Republicans do not want Obama doing it. 

At the time I wrote that post, President Obama's third nominee was waiting for his Senate vote. That happened on Monday of this week, when Robert Wilkins was also defeated using the filibuster rule.  Now Senate Democrats are once again looking at changing Senate rules to prohibit the use of the filibuster when voting on nominees for judgeships or cabinet posts.    

As Steve Benen wrote yesterday: 

"Last week, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), the Senate Pro Tem and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said, 'I think we're at a point where there will have to be a rules change.'  Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) added soon after, "...There comes a tipping point, and I'm afraid we've reached that tipping point.'

If they were waiting to see what happened with Wilkins, now they know.  Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), a leading proponent of Senate reforms, asked 'When will we say enough is enough?'

In the short term, it's up to Democrats themselves to answer this question.  Republicans, whose support is not needed for the nuclear option, have effectively dared the majority party to end the blockade...In fact, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)...dared Democrats just a week ago (to eliminate the filibuster for judgeship votes).

Senate Republicans, for all intents and purposes, have broken the judicial confirmation process. They know they're engaged in tactics with no precedent; ...they know it's obstructionism on an unsustainable scale...and they just don't give a darn."

It's now up to Senate Democrats to decide.  Do they continue to allow the minority party to run the Senate or do they act like the majority party they are and stop nearly six years of obstructionism by returning our courts to full power and putting our judicial system back to work?