Can we stop referring to changes in Senate procedure to make it easier for the majority to succeed in votes "the nuclear option"?
It seems like a lifetime ago, but the procedural move to eliminate the filibuster was called "the nuclear option" because it referred to the cold war doctrine of mutually assured destruction. The idea was that Senate procedure has so many quirks and built-in privileges for all Senators, including members of the minority party, that if the majority ever took away the minority's ability to filibuster, the minority would use all of their powers to gum up the works and make sure the majority is never able to pass anything again. Because the majority presumably wanted a functioning Senate where it could use its majority to get stuff done, the threat of gumming everything up would deter the majority from eliminating the filibuster. This theory also predicted that the nuclear threat of the majority (i.e. the threat that the majority might change the rules and eliminate the filibuster) would deter the minority from using the filibuster too much.
Virtually all of those assumptions turned out to be false. During the Bush era, a filibuster became so common that every piece of legislation and confirmation vote effectively needed a 60-vote super-majority to pass. When the Harry Reid "went nuclear" and eliminated the filibuster for confirmation votes of all presidential appointments other than Supreme Court appointments, the minority did not retaliate in any big way (at least not until they later became the majority and refused to hold hearings or vote on Merrick Garland). Unsurprisingly, Mitch McConnell has no hesitation to "go nuclear" and eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations to get Gorsuch confirmed (people were more focused on the nomination and few noticed the procedural change). McConnell's latest procedural change to speed up the confirmation of lower court judicial nominees (what the NYT article linked above refers to as a "nuclear" move) will also not produce any real backlash.
In other words, the mutually assured destruction people hypothesized in the '90s and '00s would happen if the majority tried to monkey with Senate procedure was wrong. It turns out the minority can't do that much to gum up the Senate. And whatever the minority can do, can just be taken away by the majority as soon as they try to use it. The nuclear metaphor was not accurate. There is nothing "nuclear" about changes in Senate procedure that is like the indiscriminate destruction of a nuclear weapon.
It seems like a lifetime ago, but the procedural move to eliminate the filibuster was called "the nuclear option" because it referred to the cold war doctrine of mutually assured destruction. The idea was that Senate procedure has so many quirks and built-in privileges for all Senators, including members of the minority party, that if the majority ever took away the minority's ability to filibuster, the minority would use all of their powers to gum up the works and make sure the majority is never able to pass anything again. Because the majority presumably wanted a functioning Senate where it could use its majority to get stuff done, the threat of gumming everything up would deter the majority from eliminating the filibuster. This theory also predicted that the nuclear threat of the majority (i.e. the threat that the majority might change the rules and eliminate the filibuster) would deter the minority from using the filibuster too much.
Virtually all of those assumptions turned out to be false. During the Bush era, a filibuster became so common that every piece of legislation and confirmation vote effectively needed a 60-vote super-majority to pass. When the Harry Reid "went nuclear" and eliminated the filibuster for confirmation votes of all presidential appointments other than Supreme Court appointments, the minority did not retaliate in any big way (at least not until they later became the majority and refused to hold hearings or vote on Merrick Garland). Unsurprisingly, Mitch McConnell has no hesitation to "go nuclear" and eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations to get Gorsuch confirmed (people were more focused on the nomination and few noticed the procedural change). McConnell's latest procedural change to speed up the confirmation of lower court judicial nominees (what the NYT article linked above refers to as a "nuclear" move) will also not produce any real backlash.
In other words, the mutually assured destruction people hypothesized in the '90s and '00s would happen if the majority tried to monkey with Senate procedure was wrong. It turns out the minority can't do that much to gum up the Senate. And whatever the minority can do, can just be taken away by the majority as soon as they try to use it. The nuclear metaphor was not accurate. There is nothing "nuclear" about changes in Senate procedure that is like the indiscriminate destruction of a nuclear weapon.
