John McCormack of National Review Online reports on a high-profile Utah senator’s defense of Senate tradition.
Utah GOP senator Mitt Romney said on the Senate floor … that he had decided to forgo prepared remarks in order to respond to the fact that Biden said “quite a number of things that simply weren’t true” in his speech on voting and the filibuster. …
Romney noted that Biden “accused a number of my good and principled colleagues in the Senate of having sinister, even racist inclinations. He charged that voting against his bill allies us with Bull Connor, George Wallace, and Jefferson Davis. So much for unifying the country and working across the aisle.”
Here is an excerpt of Romney’s defense of the filibuster:
“Abandoning the principle of minority empowerment would fundamentally change a distinct and essential role of the United States Senate. But today’s Democrats, now with the barest of majorities in a 50-50 Senate, conveniently ignore their own impassioned defense of the filibuster when they were in the minority.
“Let us be clear that those who claim the filibuster is racist know better. For President Obama to make this absurd charge after he himself made a vigorous and extensive defense of the filibuster just a few years ago, is both jarring and deeply disappointing. After all, I don’t recall a single claim from Democrats that employing the filibuster hundreds of times over the years when they were in the minority, was in any way racist.
“Over the course of my life, I have found that when presented with a matter of personal advantage that would require abandoning principles, the human mind goes to work overtime to rationalize taking that advantage.” …
… “And finally, Mr. President, I offer this thought: How absurd is it to claim that to save a democracy, a party that represents barely half the country must trample on the rules of our democracy’s senior institution.”
