Tara Ross on the Art of Negotiation

Tara has a great piece today on the recent filibuster deal.

Excerpt:

. . . Correct me if I’m wrong. Don’t Republicans constitute a majority in the Senate? Shouldn’t they have had an upper hand in these negotiations? Democrats are not only in the minority, but they are in a shrinking minority. One would have thought that losing Senate seats every two years would case their negotiating power to wane.
Clearly these defecting Republicans have a thing or two to learn about the art of negotiating. Any negotiator worth his salt would have, at the very least, ensured that a majority of these ten filibustered nominees receives a confirmation vote as a result of this alleged deal.

Let’s put this situation into context. Prior to Bush’s presidency, filibusters had never been used to kill a judicial nominee. During his presidency, ten judicial nominations have been filibustered (so far).

That’s zero filibusters before 2000. Ten filibusters after. How can these numbers
be justified?

Amen, Tara!