In my new Confirmation Tales post, I engage in some counterfactual history: What would have happened differently if Senate Republicans had succeeded in abolishing the filibuster for judicial nominations in May 2005? The answer will surprise you.

Here is the opening of my post:

Twenty years ago, I wished very much that Senate Republicans had succeeded in abolishing the filibuster—the 60-vote cloture threshold—for federal appellate and Supreme Court seats. I still believe that what Senate Democrats derided as the “nuclear option” was the most sensible path for Senate Republicans to pursue, given what they could reasonably have foreseen at the time.
But hindsight suggests a different assessment: From the perspective of legal conservatives, the Gang of 14 Agreement probably turned out to be much more beneficial than filibuster abolition would have been, with respect both to appellate judges and especially to Supreme Court justices. Ironically, if the filibuster had been abolished in May 2005, Samuel Alito might well never have become Justice Alito. Further, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell would have had a more difficult challenge in February 2016 unifying Senate Republicans around his monumental decision to keep the vacancy resulting from Justice Antonin Scalia’s death open through the November 2016 election. If McConnell hadn’t succeeded, Donald Trump probably wouldn’t have been elected and wouldn’t have appointed three justices.

Read the whole thing, and if you haven’t already done so, please sign up for Confirmation Tales.