The federal government is failing America. By abolishing the filibuster in federal judge appointments, government officials are creating an unfair and unjust judicial system. Politicians must bring the practice back to protect America’s democratic republic and the independent judiciary. 

All federal judges are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, including those in Illinois. Decisions made by Illinois federal judges directly affect Illinois residents, including those at NIU and in DeKalb. By removing the need for bipartisan support, Illinois’s interpretations of the law are partisan.

The cloture, with 60 Senate votes, ends the filibuster; this requirement forced judge candidates to have bipartisan support. With a simple majority, only 51 Senate votes are required to confirm the candidate as a judge. By only needing so few votes, the majority party can confirm any judge candidate they want appointed without minority party consideration.

In 2013, Democrats dismissed the practice of the filibuster for federal judges. In 2017, Republicans ended the filibuster practice for Supreme Court justices. Now, all federal judges only need a simple majority for confirmation, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Gregory Elinson, an assistant professor at the NIU Law School, explained that, by utilizing a filibuster, the government will need relative bipartisan support for appointees because they need 60 votes for cloture. 

“The people who are getting through that are going to be, in some sense, more moderate because they’re going to be more acceptable to the opposition,” Elinson said. 

American Founding Fathers would be appalled by the current government’s attempts to work around a system designed with the separation of powers in mind – as it was originally defined by Federalist Paper 47. 

Because the majority party in the Senate is able to completely disregard the minority party, Senators do not need to cooperate to confirm judge appointments and can make judges more political figures, often leaning more conservative or liberal, rather than being nonpartisan.

By allowing politics to enter the judiciary, people appointing judges know how the judge will rule on certain issues, making them political figures.

Elinson explained some of the problems with the simple majority judge.

“I suppose it is just the idea that you kind of get, you kind of muscled people through along partisan lines or that you’re gonna get judges who have no Republican support or no Democrat support, and there’s some argument that that politicizes the judiciary in a way that’s undesirable,” Elinson said.

The federal government needs to reinstate the filibuster for the good of the American public and the independent judiciary. 

Despite these benefits, the filibuster is not perfect. 

“It’s just sort of anti-majoritarian in a small instance, which is the origin of the Majorities Strict rule. It’s 50% plus one. There’s nothing in the Constitution or any place that would require 60 votes. It’s not obvious why. Why not? Why not have consensus right?” Elinson said.

There is the belief that if a party wins the majority they should be able to do whatever they want, even if that means sacrificing cooperation for political gain.

Despite the drawbacks, the filibuster creates a more collaborative system, rather than allowing pure political bullying between parties.

Losing objectivity means the law becomes conservative or democratic rather than being the law. By failing to promote cooperation, the American government is failing Americans.