It is clear, especially after our reading of Chapter 13, that the President holds far too much power during the appointing of all federal judges, including within the Supreme Court. I believe the largest reason for the imbalance of power that so drastically favors the President is due in large to the Senate itself. In the course of conducting debates in the Senate, one side or the other of the political aisle have taken turns growing in frsutration with the process to the extent of being willing to absolve themselves of power. In American politics, the filibuster is treasured. I have read that the concept of a filibuster, holding a discussion on a topic to the extent that the topic itself cannot be decided upon and not incidentally but as a decision or action in and of itself, is relatively unique to America. Embodied within the ability to filibuster is the concept that debate and discussion are welcomed in politics, even when they occur endlessly and without resolution. In some ways, the filibuster analogizes to the Greek phillosophers quite nicely, the legislative session being a human life and the discussion without resolution being a life of philisophical debate. In this way, both seem to actively achieve nothing but themselves represent a closeness to enlightenment and the value placed on dialogue.

When the Senate grew weary of their opponents making use of this virtuous political tool they willingly conceded this power. This removed, to a large degree, the Senate’s ability to provide oversight of judicial nominees and especially so from the minority party. This, interestingly, was precisely why they removed this power from themselves. The Senate, therefore, is rapidly losing power in the judicial nomination process but we see, at least in this specific instance, or both instances when considering the Supreme Court and lower court procedures as separate procedures, that they are intentionally losing power. They have removed their own voice in an attempt to remove their opponents voice. In both cases, they have willingly silenced their body in a short sighted effort to surmount today’s obstacles and weakened the one of the protections enjoyed by the Judicial branch against politicization and radicalization.

In the Supreme Court we have recently seen this issue play out through the Cavanaugh hearing. Although I had not paid careful attention at the time, it was relatively clear that one side of the Senate clearly held the view that this judge may have acted very poorly early in their life. Whether this should have prevented an individual from serving on the Supreme Court decades later I cannot say. I can say that it does not appear that the Senate arrived at a conclusion on that issue, rather it was decided by the majority of the Senate who happened to populate the same political party as the President who nominated the Justice and who appeared to have not been concerned over the allegations.