Chris Kemp

This week, I received a notice in the mail at my parents’ house that my number had been called for jury duty. And, while some may have griped upon receiving the letter, I was ecstatic to get the change to fulfill my civic obligation.

As a lame-ass “Law and Order” nerd, I envisioned myself in a courtroom full of eager spectators and overzealous attorneys who regularly are asked to approach the bench. However, unfortunately, I will not be able to live out my geeky “Law and Order” fantasy, because I live in Eau Claire and was called to duty by the Dane County Circuit courts.

Although I didn’t get the opportunity to participate in voir dire, the concept of juries, and more broadly the U.S. court system in general, is intriguing.

The judicial branch of our federal government seems to be of particular interest now with recent contentions over the Senate’s confirmation process.

As we all know and can appreciate, our government was founded on the concept of checks and balances. This basically means no one governmental official or body holds enough power to screw the people over on its own. It’s a system that has, more or less, worked for more than 200 years.

This system, however, is currently under fire in the U.S. Senate.

Constitutionally, the president nominates justices to sit on the federal bench, which consists of The Supreme Court, the 13 Courts of Appeal and 94 District Courts. The nominations are then passed to the Senate Judiciary Committee (currently chaired by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn.) for advice and consent. After being confirmed by the Judiciary Committee, the nomination is brought before the entire Senate for consideration and an ultimate vote.

Now, if you’ve made it through that and aren’t completely bored, I can explain why this process is no longer in adherence to a balance of power.

Currently, the U.S. Senate has 44 Democrats, 55 Republicans and one Independent. Specter unofficially promised Bush he would not stand in the way of any judicial nomination, and it looks as though the simple majority vote needed to confirm nominees would be easy for Senate Republicans to pull off.

However, the one check on the confirmation process, which has now been threatened, is an exciting little thing known as the judicial filibuster, which, in essence, allows a minority party to block confirmations that it considers especially dangerous to its interpretation of the law.

This is why Senate Republicans now are pushing for a parliamentary rule to ban judicial filibusters. Each nominee, therefore, would go directly to a simple yes or no vote, and with the 55-44 majority, all nominees are likely to be granted confirmation.

The problem with the ban of judicial filibusters lies much deeper than petty partisan politics. It basically would remove the ability for the Senate to have a check on executive appointments. Therefore, the ban not only should concern those who don’t agree with the politics of the nominees, it should also concern we the people, as citizens of a representative democracy.

So now, instead of allowing filibusters, Democrats and Republicans are holding individual closed-door meetings while bartering nominees.

As a journalist, I especially see the need for government transparency, and this ban is doing the exact opposite. At the same time, it is upsetting the balance of power.

So, what do we do?

The Democrats need to take a firm stance (although theirs is for the wrong reasons) and not allow the Republicans to continue their current disregard for the balance of power. (By the way, I fully believe that, if the tables were turned, the Democrats would also consider banning the filibusters.)

Also, the Republicans need to begin some sort of damage control. Not only is the filibuster ban painting them in an unfavorable light, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, isn’t helping much.

As a young optimistic American, I held to the belief justices were completely objective. And now, as a journalism student, I hold the same about some members of the press. However, if nothing else, the current debacle that is taking place in the Senate will show citizens how politics play an undeniable role in our judicial system.

One can only hope that the next generation of eager “Law and Order” geeks will have enough faith after this to wait in anticipation to be called to jury duty.

Pelleymounter is a senior print journalism and political science major and editorial editor of The Spectator. Pelley’s Perspective is a weekly column that appears every Thursday.