Bobert
Date: 20 Apr 10 - 07:44 AM

Actually, black people were never treated as 3/5 of a person in terms of their votes counting, since back then they weren't allowed to vote at all. The court ruling was that 3/5 of them could be counted as part of a state's population for purposes of deciding how many Congressional representatives that state could have.   (So the slave states were benefitting in terms of Congressional representation from having "people" who were considered "property" and could not vote.)

You're right, of course, that the recent Citizens United decision runs counter to the "one-man-one-vote" principle.

You're also right that if Obama nominated Jesus, the Republicans would still try to filibuster the nomination.

We do need another "Gang of Seven" (or maybe even just a "Gang of Three") to bring some level of civility into the Senate confirmation process. Using the "nuclear option" isn't in the best interest of the country in judical confirmations. Nor, I think, is the use of the filibuster in court nominee confirmations, unless the nominee is FAR out of the mainstream of judicial philosophy -- which could probably have been argued of William O Douglas and of both Roberts and Scalia.

I actually think a filibuster could be warranted in the case of a nominee basically stonewalls the Senators, denying that s/he has ever given any thought to key issues like corporate personhood, the second amendment, the right to privacy, etc., and basically refusing to answer questions.    But I would advocate for the use of the filibuster in such cases ONLY if the Senate agreed NOT to filibuster nominees who DO answer pertinent questions (again, unless their views are really extreme).