The judge blockade announced by Senator Daschle has barely been reported in South Dakota, which is unfortunate. For more information, note this New York Times story:
The breakdown, members of both parties said, came after Mr. Daschle met with the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, this week to warn him that Democrats would block all future nominees unless they received assurances from the White House that there would be no more recess appointments. Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat who is a member of the Judiciary Committee, said he conveyed a similar warning to White House officials.When no assurances were forthcoming, Mr. Schumer said, Democrats agreed that Mr. Daschle needed to state the Democrats' intentions publicly on the Senate floor.
This level of legislative paralysis is quite unprecedented, as noted here. Remember, the recess appointments were given to judges who weren't even given a vote because of a Democratic filabuster, despite Daschle's statement that they had been "rejected" by the Senate. Does that seem unfair? Daschle thought so, in 1999, when a different President was in office:
Tom Daschle, 1999: "I find it simply baffling that a Senator would vote against even voting on a judicial nomination."
The larger question for the Daschle v. Thune race is does consistency matter? Of course, since the issue is so under-reported it's hard to say if voters are aware of the inconsistency. For more on Daschle and the inconsistency question, see this article.
UPDATE: Now this is amazing. Look at Daschle's position on recess appointments when Clinton was President in this New York Post article entitled "Daschle's Duplicity." And thanks to Instapundit for the link.
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