"The Voice of the Majority Decides"

Statement

WASHINGTON -Senate Democrats on Thursday held a rally at the Jefferson Memorial to discuss their continued obstruction of the President's judicial nominees. They are searching, apparently, for some historical justification for their efforts. But as U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee points out, "Thomas Jefferson himself recognized that the Senate had the power to confirm judges by majority vote."

"Today's event at the Jefferson Memorial provides a helpful reminder to the nation that our Founders firmly believed that judicial nominees are confirmed by majority vote," Cornyn said. "This tradition that has consistently been followed throughout our nation's history and enforced by both parties-until the last Congress."

As Vice President, Thomas Jefferson served as President of the Senate, and he wrote his Manual of Parliamentary Procedure to assist him in those duties. Section 41 of Jefferson 's Manual states that "[t]he voice of the majority decides. For the lex majoris partis is the law of all councils, elections, &c. where not otherwise expressly provided."

Jefferson specifically believed that a majority of either house of Congress has the power to make rules and precedents. He famously declared in a letter to James Madison that "the earth belongs always to the living generation." And he worked together with Madison on the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which specifically acknowledges that "this assembly elected by the people for ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law."

These views were certainly shared by our other leading Founders. As Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist No. 22, "the fundamental maxim of republican government ... requires that the sense of the majority should prevail." Similarly, Madison stated in Federalist No. 58 that "the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed" if supermajority voting requirements were the norm. "It would be no longer the majority that would rule: the power would be transferred to the minority."

The Founders did not use filibusters. In fact, for the first several Congresses (from 1789 to 1806), a majority of Senators always had the power to bring debate to a close through majority vote (through the motion for the previous question, under Senate Rule IX). As Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W. Va. ) has noted, "[i]t is apparent that the Senate in the First Congress disapproved of unlimited debate." (The Senate 1789-1989, vol. II, p. 115)

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