Herald-Tribune
(Batesville, IN) September 7, 2018
INDIANAPOLIS – Man, we could use
another Richard Lugar or Lee Hamilton in Congress right now.
The opening of the
Senate hearings on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to serve on the U.S. Supreme
Court demonstrates how much the absence of an honest broker respected on both
sides of the aisle costs us.
That's the role
Lugar, a Republican U.S. senator, and Hamilton, a Democratic member of the U.S.
House of Representatives, played for decades. Because they were trusted, they
could keep people talking with each other and resolve differences.
It's clear we now
don't have anyone doing that.
Watching the
opening of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings was like driving by an ugly auto
accident over and over and over again.
Republicans came to
the hearings determined to push Kavanaugh over the top. They didn't advance any
argument much more sophisticated than "we have the votes" – largely because
they didn't have to. They do have the votes.
Democrats responded
by turning the hearings into a prolonged infomercial about autocratic abuses of
power and the erosion of the rule of law. Their thinking seemed to be that, if
they had to sacrifice the nation's highest court to their opponents, they were
going to get something in return – a clear path to talk with America
about where unchecked Republican rule was taking the country.
Both sides
belittled each other for betraying the rules of civility, courtesy and the
Senate.
(Trust me on this
one, senators. You can skip the finger-pointing. There's shame enough involved
here for every one of you to own a piece.)
No better evidence
could have been offered regarding how dysfunctional our government has become.
If the federal
government were a marriage, it would be headed to a painful divorce right now.
We Americans did a
trial separation once – in the 1860s. It didn't go well. By the time the Civil War
ended, nearly a quarter of an entire generation of American men had been
killed. The wounds inflicted on the nation linger to this day.
The inertia of
increasing incremental disrespect brought us to this point.
For the better of
two centuries, the process for elevating justices to lifetime appointments on
the nation's highest court required something resembling consensus. That
process couldn't move forward without the consent of at least some members of
the party in the minority, because judges were supposed to be fair to everyone
and open to all points of view.
That has changed in
the past couple generations.
When they were in
power, both Democrats and Republicans grew frustrated with the work of
persuading the minority party to go along with their judicial nominations – and enamored with
the leverage unreasoning opposition gave them when they were not in the
majority.
In a series of
institutional reforms advanced by one party and then escalated, in turn, by the
other, the Senate approved what was called the "nuclear option" – a waiver of the
rules that dispenses with any need for consensus and allows the barest majority
to place a justice on the high bench.
Now, the nuclear
option has become the norm.
It's as if
jaywalking were used as a justification for mugging and then mugging for
murder.
Together, the
Republicans and the Democrats in the U.S. Senate will place a person on the
U.S. Supreme Court who is perceived not as an independent interpreter of the
nation's fundamental laws, but as the equivalent of a party hack, nothing more
than a patronage hustler.
Together, the
Republicans and the Democrats in the U.S. Senate will have undermined
confidence in what had been one of this country's most revered institutions,
the judicial branch.
Together, the
Republicans and the Democrats in the U.S. Senate will have eroded confidence in
the idea of law itself.
They didn't set out
to do this.
It happened because
there apparently is no one in Congress with the maturity and detachment to ask,
"If we do this, what happens next?" There apparently is no one who
can persuade members of Congress to sit down and resolve their differences like
rational human beings.
There apparently is
no one in our great lawmaking bodies who is willing to be the adult in the
room.
John Krull is
director of Franklin College's Pulliam School of Journalism, host of "No
Limits" WFYI 90.1, Indianapolis, and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com,
a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.
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