The Republican Party just isn’t conservative anymore.

While to some this is obvious and others it is heresy, the latest ongoing example of this change is the party leadership’s ongoing war on judges, and especially its potential culmination in activating the “nuclear option” to end the Democratic filibuster of several of President Bush’s nominees for the federal bench.

Going nuclear isn’t as exciting as it sounds — it only means a majority of the Senate could vote to break a rule that has been around for about 200 years. That rule forces a super-majority of Senators (60 nowadays) to choose to end debate on a topic before it can be put to a vote.

Most parliamentary systems have some a similar rule. The logic behind the rule is that it allows a full debate on an issue, but it has historically allowed for the obstruction of legislation in the Senate as well.

The filibuster has been used for some crummy reasons. Huey Long used it to prevent his political enemies from getting government appointments. The Civil Rights Act took 57 days to pass, due to filibustering by its opponents in both parties. But it has also been used to provide deliberation on topics of much importance, including the appointment of judges.

In 1968, Earl Warren stepped down as Supreme Court Chief Justice and President Lyndon Johnson nominated Justice Abe Fortas to replace him. Republicans in the Senate subsequently filibustered his appointment, after a number of questions were raised about his finances and ties to the president.

The filibuster succeeded, and Johnson was forced to withdraw Fortas’ nomination.

Since then, there have been more than 20 filibusters of judges. In addition, both parties have used other tricks to keep nominees from coming up for a vote — the Republicans blocked more than 60 of President Bill Clinton’s nominees this way, for example.

The comparative modesty of the Democratic filibuster is worth noting. They are only blocking 10 appointments, having confirmed almost 200 others. The nominees being obstructed include one fellow who has practiced law without a license in both Washington and Utah, and another who in law school argued for banning interracial marriages and who intervened to reduce the sentence of someone convicted of cross-burning.

Regardless of one’s feeling on these particular filibusters, it is important to recognize the procedure as a fundamentally conservative tool — it keeps those in power from doing anything too extreme. It is a shame then that Republicans want to abandon it when they are the ones being put on hold.