Tom Udall: “I think we have come back to the central question. That question is, How does our Constitution work when it comes to…”

“I think we have come back to the central question. That question is, How does our Constitution work when it comes to nominees? I do not have any doubt that we are talking about majorities. There are only five places in the Constitution where a supermajority is mentioned. It is not mentioned when it deals with advice and consent, judicial nominees, or Presidential nominees to the executive branch. I think the Republican policy committee said it very well in the memo the Senator is talking about. It was authored at the time when the head of the policy committee was John Kyl. He was the chairman of the policy committee, known in the Senate as a good lawyer, and was respected on the Constitution. He wrote about the Constitution and how the Constitution should work. He said a couple of things that I think are interesting. This was back on April 25, 2005: The filibustering Senators are trying to create a new Senate precedent--a 60-vote requirement for the confirmation of judges--contrary to the simple-majority standard presumed in the Constitution. A little bit further on, he also said: An exercise of the constitutional option-- That means taking an action to put a judge on the court with a majority vote-- The exercise of the constitutional option under the current circumstance would be an act of restoration--a return to the historic and constitutional confirmation standard of simple- majority support for all judicial nominations. So I do not think anything has changed.…”