Since Democrats changed U.S. Senate rules in November to remove the 60-vote threshold for cloture motions on most presidential nominees, senators have confirmed dozens of President Barack Obama’s appointees as federal judges, ambassadors, and to various executive branch positions. In fact, fifteen presidential nominees sailed through the process during the past month alone.
Yesterday, for the first time under new Senate rules, Democrats could not muster even a simple majority of votes in favor of cloture on a presidential nominee. Alexander Bolton and Ramsey Cox reported on the controversy that torpedoed Debo Adegbile’s nomintaion to be assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Critics said Adegbile was unfit for the job because as director of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, he had supported efforts commute the death sentence of Mumia Abu-Jamal, “who was convicted of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981.”
Seven Democrats joined all the Republicans present to defeat the cloture motion on Adegbile’s nomination by 52 votes to 47 (roll call). The Iowans split along party lines, with Senator Tom Harkin supporting cloture on Adegbile’s nomination and Senator Chuck Grassley voting against the motion. Harkin sharply criticized his colleagues, saying Adegbile would have been confirmed if he were white.
Bolton and Cox saw yesterday’s vote as “a stinging defeat for Obama.” I see it as a more stinging defeat to basic concepts underlying the American justice system: everyone has a right to a defense, and defense attorneys should not be held accountable for their clients’ conduct. Going back to the colonial period, this country has a tradition of attorneys providing a vigorous defense at trial to even odious criminals. President John Adams remained proud of his work defending the British soldiers responsible for the Boston Massacre of 1770 and opposing the death penalty for them, even though they had shot and killed patriots.
UPDATE: Added comments from Harkin after the jump.
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