By Joseph Klein
Sunday, November 12, 2006
President Bush has re-nominated John Bolton to serve as our UN ambassador for the balance of his term. The nomination is presently stalled in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee due to party line opposition by the Democratic Party members and by the defeated Republican Senator from Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafee. Bolton deserves an up or down vote in the full Senate. Without it, his recess appointment expires when the current Congressional session ends in January 2007. That would be a devastating loss for the United States and – yes – for the United Nations as well. But, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of the death of ambassador Bolton's re-nomination are "greatly exaggerated" unless he prematurely decides to pull out of the running himself.
Bolton has served his country admirably during his recess appointment as UN ambassador. He has displayed tenacity and deft diplomacy in helping the Security Council become relevant again. He has brokered Security Council resolutions on North Korea, Lebanon, and Sudan. He is making some progress on Iran. Bolton has also stood up for Israel against obsessive attacks by its enemies whom the amoral majority of member states and the UN bureaucracy are all to willing to placate. and he has insisted on meaningful budget and managerial reforms at the United Nations, where waste, corruption and an entitlement culture pervade. He is not the proverbial bull in a china shop that his detractors make him out to be. But he is a bulldog for doing the right thing, using candor rather than diplomatic obfuscation to advance his positions.
In order to allow Bolton's nomination to be referred to the full Senate for consideration, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's rules require a majority affirmative vote of its members. a tie vote – which would result from opposition to Bolton by Chafee and all of the Democratic Committee members – would keep the nomination from the floor and would effectively kill it unless the Senate allows a vote by unanimous consent which certainly will not happen. So Bolton's opponents are crowing that his nomination is dead. On the Bolton Watch website, a blog devoted to defeating Bolton's nomination, a piece is posted entitled "Dead, Mort, Muerte,".
But that is not necessarily the case. Bolton's nomination can be approved by a majority vote on the Senate floor during the remainder of this Congressional session if Senate Majority Leader Frist has the will to press the issue.
Frist never did have to use the so-called Constitutional option (what Democrats like to call the "nuclear" option) in moving past minority opposition to President Bush's judicial nominees and forcing an up or down vote on the Senate floor. But now, in his last days as Majority Leader, he can do so for Bolton. Deadlock in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is not the be all and end all of the Senate's decision-making on a nomination as important as this. Under the Senate's rules, a Majority Leader may offer a non-debatable motion to proceed with a measure without unanimous consent if the measure is taken up during a two hour period in the morning that the Senate rules call the "morning hour." a motion to proceed to consider "executive calendar business" is also non-debatable. Senate rules consider a nomination to be an item of executive business. In short, Frist has the power during the remainder of his term to bypass the deadlock at the Committee and bring Bolton's nomination to the Senate floor for an up or down vote. He has really nothing to lose as he is leaving the Senate anyway.
This is where things start to get interesting. after much protestation about violation of Senate protocol, the Democratic minority will try to organize a filibuster against the nomination, requiring sixty votes to override. Not counting Chafee, the Republicans should be able to muster virtually all their remaining fifty-four votes to cut off debate and proceed to a vote. all that are needed are six Democrats or so to join the Republican majority and the filibuster would be broken. Even Hillary Clinton may be hard-pressed to support a filibuster if she does not want to alienate Jewish voters who applaud Bolton's strong stands in support of Israel. However, sensing their new-found power in taking control of the Senate in 2007, virtually all Democrats may rally around the filibuster to put the issue off until next year.
If the votes to break a filibuster do not appear to be there, Senator Frist can finally get a chance to use the Constitutional or ‘nuclear' option and change the rules by majority vote now to eliminate the filibuster option. If anything, the rationale for this action is stronger than it would have been for a judicial nomination. Judicial nominees may arguably have a higher bar to meet before being confirmed by the Senate since they will serve in an independent branch of government. But the President's nominees for his own administration deserve deference. While the Constitution stipulates a two-thirds Senate vote to approve a treaty, it stipulates only a majority vote for ambassadors and other Presidential appointments. The Founding Fathers rejected the idea that such appointments are a collective decision because "in every exercise of the power of appointing to offices by an assembly of men, we must expect to see a full display of al the private and party likings and dislikes, partialities and antipathies, attachments and animosities, which are felt by those who compose the assembly." (alexander Hamilton Federalist No. 76).
While there may have been some legitimate concerns about Bolton's temperament before he began serving as our UN ambassador, no person can honestly point to any pattern of behavior that was damaging to our country's representation at the UN while Bolton served there. If anything, Bolton fits very nicely into the mold of other assertive and successful UN ambassadors like Patrick Moynihan and Dr. Jeane Kirkpatrick. He has served with distinction. The only reasons for opposition are because of "party likings and dislikes" and "animosities" – invalid reasons to refuse to perform the Senate's duty of advice and consent.
Some will say that the matter should be deferred to the next Congressional session, starting in January 2007, since the people have voted for a change of party control and a change in the country's direction. But that is irrelevant when it comes to the relative powers of the President and the Senate in picking individuals to serve in the President's administration. President Bush has more than two years left in his term, irrespective of change of party control in Congress. He is certainly entitled to an up or down vote in the Senate on his nominees for the Executive Branch so long as he remains in office. "advice and Consent of the Senate" does not mean blockage by a tie vote in one committee or blockage of the opportunity to consent by a minority filibuster. anything other than an up or down Senate vote in these circumstances violates the Constitution's separation of powers provisions.
That said, if Bolton should withdraw from consideration or the present Republican Senate majority loses its nerve, President Bush should return to the next session of Congress with either one of the following nominees – Senator George allen or Senator Rick Santorum. Either man will represent the United States well at the United Nations. Would the Democrats go so far as to turn on their former Senate colleagues because they are from the opposite party? That depends on how partisan they really intend to be. Fearing for the worst, it would be far more preferable to push the ‘nuclear' option now and get John Bolton appointed as he should be.
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