CNN Buys Into Right-Wing Myths About D.C. Circuit and Filibuster Reform
CNN congressional correspondent Dana Bash repeated the right-wing myth that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, arguably the second most important court in the country, is currently “evenly split” and inaccurately reported that the blanket filibusters preventing up-or-down votes on President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees are “sacrosanct.”
In the wake of a flurry of filibusters of the president’s highly-qualified nominees to the D.C. Circuit, Democrats appear to have finally convinced holdouts in their caucus that Senate Republicans’ unprecedented obstructionism of judicial and executive nominees is unacceptable. Unfortunately, in reporting on this development that a change to the Senate rules may finally have enough votes to pass, CNN’s Bash uncritically repeated right-wing media’s dissembling justifications for the GOP blockade. From the November 19 edition of the Situation Room:
BASH: As you well know, Senate filibusters require 60 votes to overcome and it’s a pretty high hurdle in a politically divided Senate but the ability to filibuster has been sacrosanct, neither party has dared take that power away from the minority. But Democrats are so frustrated right now that they can’t get the president’s nominees confirmed, they are once again threatening to do just that, the nuclear option.
[…]
BASH: But unlike other partisan brawls over the course, this is not about qualifications or ideology of the nominees. It’s about the makeup of the court itself. The D.C. Circuit, the powerful federal appeals court that hears most challenges to laws passed by Congress, now evenly split, four judges appointed by Democrats and four by Republicans. And the GOP wants to keep it that way.
[…]
BASH: Republicans argue the D.C. Circuit workload isn’t heavy enough to need three more judges. They say Democrats are the ones playing politics
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