Judges and Filibusters

The controversy over Judicial Confirmations is heating up. My first impression, is that either way this whole deal ends up being resolved, it truly isn't that important. The basic point of disagreement, is whether Judges should require 51 or 60 votes for confirmation. When it comes down to it, the difference in caliber and ideology between a Judge who could get 51, but not 60 probably isn't that great. Unlike the house, where Gerrymandering has made elections all but irrelevant, the Senate has a fairly large number of moderates. I don't think that the Republicans will be able to frequently get 51 when they couldn't get 60, and I don't think the Democrats will be able to frequently get maintain a filibuster when they don't have a majority. Of course, once or twice (the number of expected Supreme Court appointments) is more likely. Still, no Judge who is way far out of the mainstream will get appointed in any event. Nonetheless, I am a big fan of rules on how we decide things, and debating the underlying issue of how we should decide this seems worthy. Obviously, the Filibuster is not a Constitutional minority right and it is certainly arguable that even if it were, it applies to legislation, not confirmations. Equally obvious is that the Senate operates largely on rules and traditions that are extra-constitutional and changing these for simple political advantage has perils of it's own. By and large, the rules of the Senate work, and work well, so caution in changing them has a certain amount of merit. That being said, my solution to this problem is probably somewhat radical. I would prefer to maintain the Filibuster, but require it to actually mean something. Currently, when a Filibuster is going on, no one particularly notices. There is no actual debate or even reading of the Phone Book, and the Senate goes about it's business. This of course means that a Filibuster has no political cost other than obstructing the single point of contention it is aimed at, which of course is almost always a political benefit, not a political cost, for the party doing the obstructing. I would prefer that once debate begins on a particular item, it become the sole business of the Senate until the item passes or is withdrawn. A 60 vote majority would be required for cloture, and a 51 vote majority would be required to with draw the legislation, nomination, whatever. While we remained between those two numbers, no other Senate business could get done. This would create political cost for both sides in the debate, which is good, and would probably improve cooperation between the parties, which I also think is good. Ironically perhaps, this solution would jump right past the 'nuclear option' and put us directly into Senator Reid's obstructionist plan. I am admittedly a big fan of congressional gridlock, and this would definately create more of that. Any time when there were serious enough issues that gridlock became a major problem though, I think there would be enough political pressure for a resolution to be found, and found quickly.