Douglas Alexander: “I am the Senator from Tennessee, and we know something about country music in our State. There is an old country music…”

“I am the Senator from Tennessee, and we know something about country music in our State. There is an old country music song with the line that goes something like this: There is light at the end of the tunnel and I hope it ain't no train. I am beginning to think it is a train and that there is not much way to avoid a train wreck. The train wreck I am talking about is a threat by the minority to ``shut the Senate down in every way'' if the majority adopts rules that will do what the Senate has done for 200 years, which is to vote up or down the President's appellate judicial nominees. Until recently, not to vote at all on a President's judicial nominee was unimaginable. Take the case of Clarence Thomas in 1991: The first President Bush nominated him to the Supreme Court of the United States. I haven't seen any debate in this body with as much passion in it as the Thomas nomination. But he was nominated in July, the Senate voted in October 52 to 48, and it was done. Yet, in the last session of Congress, for some reason that escapes me, the minority felt it had to use the filibuster to deny an up-and-down vote 10 times on 52 of the President's appellate judicial nominees. That has never happened before. There are a lot of ingenious arguments being made on the other side, but that has never happened. Some people mention Abe Fortas in 1968--I was here then; I was working for Howard Baker in the Senate. The votes against Fortas were in the majority.…”