Republican opposition to Obama nominees makes the case for filibuster reform

Keep talking, Sessions. It's helping your opponents. Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III (R-AL) says, "Jack Lew must never be secretary of Treasury." Sessions has a say because he's ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee. What Sessions isn't saying is that he'll make sure that Lew doesn't become Treasury secretary through a filibuster.

"At this time of unprecedented slow growth, high unemployment, and huge deficits, we need a Secretary of Treasury that the American people, the Congress, and the world will know is up to the task of getting America on the path to prosperity not the path to decline. Jack Lew is not that man," Sessions said.

There's been similar chest-thumping from Republicans about President Obama's nominees for the CIA and Defense, John Brennan and Chuck Hagel, insisting that they're going to make every single nomination from Obama a fight. They're playing to their base, obviously. These nominations are highly unlikely to be filibustered, in the end, but the Republican base wants a fight over everything Obama wants, so these senators are obliging, at least with tough talk.

But what they're also doing, unwittingly, is making a strong case to their Democratic colleagues for filibuster reform. This kind of knee-jerk opposition and obstruction just demonstrates that Republicans haven't been chastened by the 2012 election, Mitt Romney's loss, and the loss of two Senate seats. They're as determined as ever to obstruct and to try to threaten and bully the White House on everything from nominations to legislation. It worked for them in the case of Susan Rice, so why wouldn't they?

What could help end all of this, the threat-making and the real obstruction, is real filibuster reform. The Republican posturing and threats to block nominations and legislation is doing little more than providing a damned good reason for Democrats to end it with real reform.

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