Centerfield

Advice and consent, all over again

I stumbled across a recent Debate Club matchup between Erwin Chemerinsky and Brannon P. Denning. The latter has written extensive work on the dormant commerce clause, ranging from the sterling to the outright stellar. The debate covers what questions might be asked of Judge Roberts and retreads the constitutionality of the filibuster.

My favourite moment - a genuine, and very literal, laugh-out-loud moment - is when Denning responds to Chemerinsky's assertion that the filibuster should be used to reject nominees he dislikes by quoting a 1997 article co-written by Chemerinsky arguing that the filibuster is "simply a minority veto.... It is not part of a long Senate tradition and history alone cannot justify it." Denning drops a hammer-blow coup de grace - "what changed your mind?" - leaving Chemerinsky to stumble and blithely change the subject to the nuclear option. It isn't every day you get to see a senior and widely-respected constituional scholar get blown out of the park by an associate Professor of the Cumberland School of Law.

While this face-off justifies a read alone, the debate is excellent and well-worth a read in preparation for the slugging match next month (which I predict will be far less polite than prevalent wisdom since Roberts' nomination suggests).