Orrin Hatch: “as I listened to the distinguished Senator from West Virginia speak against filibuster reform, I wanted to make a few…”

“as I listened to the distinguished Senator from West Virginia speak against filibuster reform, I wanted to make a few points that he did not say, at least as far as I could tell. I did not hear every word of his speech, but I did hear enough of it. Number one, he did not say that killing judicial nominations by filibuster is part of Senate tradition, nor could he have said that because for the first time in history, we have had filibusters of judicial nominees. Only President Bush's judicial nominees have been filibustered by our colleagues on the other side, and in every case where they were filibustered, those nominees had majority support. So filibustering judges is not a part of the tradition of the Senate, nor has it ever been. Some have said that the Abe Fortas nomination for Chief Justice was filibustered. Hardly. I thought it was, too, until I was corrected by the man who led the fight against Abe Fortas, Senator Robert Griffin of Michigan, who then was the floor leader for the Republican side and, frankly, the Democratic side because the vote against Justice Fortas, preventing him from being Chief Justice, was a bipartisan vote, a vote with a hefty number of Democrats voting against him as well. Former Senator Griffin told me and our whole caucus that there never was a real filibuster because a majority would have beaten Justice Fortas outright. Lyndon Johnson, knowing that Justice Fortas was going to be beaten, withdrew the nomination.”