Senator Schumer must think New Yorkers are a bunch of idiots. Apparently, so must all the Democratic senators who are going ballistic over the possibility of a nuclear option over the filibustering tactic that Mr. Schumer’s been using to block certain nominees to the federal courts.

In an April 7 press conference, Mr. Schumer said: “Well, today we saw the heart and soul of the nuclear option. In other words, who was pushing for it. It’s a bunch of extreme fringe ideological groups who want to take America back to the 1930s or the 1890s.”

Extreme fringe ideological groups? My goodness! What exactly did our senior senator mean?

He explained further: “And they came together today. They revealed themselves. The meeting today was under the umbrella of the Judeo-Christian Council on Constitutional Restoration but included such extreme groups as the Texas Justice Foundation, the Free Congress Foundation, the Eagle Forum.”

Basically Mr. Schumer is saying that any group that is pro-family and promotes Judeo-Christian values is extreme. He is not, however, explaining what’s actually behind the entire filibuster controversy.

Here’s what Mr. Schumer is glossing over: For 214 years, presidential judicial nominees needed only a majority vote to provide the advice and consent in the Constitution. Four years ago, the Senate Democrats insisted they be allowed to filibuster, increasing the vote threshold to 60 votes for President Bush’s nominees.

This is important: The Republicans are not speaking about eliminating the filibuster for legislation. They are asking for a return to the tradition of allowing an up or down vote by our elected representatives for judicial nominations.

Yet somehow Mr. Schumer is asserting that to do so is undemocratic. Not allowing a vote by those whom we elected to represent us in the Senate is exactly that.

There may have been a time when we, the voters, assumed that our congressional leaders spoke of the facts, but since the dawn of the Internet those days are long gone. The truth is now in the broadband and it’s impossible to hide the details.

So what exactly is the nuclear option and when did it start scaring the daylights out of the Democrats? It’s a rarely used parliamentary procedure that requires just 51 votes to break a filibuster and force a final vote on a judicial nomination. Democrats object to its use because they claim that it would end the Senate tradition of collegiality and paralyze the chamber with partisanship. (Smile.)

The idea for implementing such a motion probably originated with an Internet posting on a conservative Web site written in 2003 by the author of “Back to Basics for the Republican Party,” Michael Zak, who has done extensive research on the GOP’s historical support for civil rights. The article brought Mr. Zak to the attention of the director of outreach at the Senate Policy Committee, Barbara Ledeen. Mr. Zak later explained his idea to a policy adviser in the office of the Senate majority leader, Senator Frist of Tennessee.

Mr. Zak also sent his option idea by e-mail to several key Senate staff members. In his proposal, Mr. Zak mentions the name of William Crum. He was a black man nominated five times by President Theodore Roosevelt for a federal post in South Carolina. The Democrats continually blocked his appointment, but Roosevelt finally succeeded by making him a recess appointment. Senator Hatch, the Utah Republican, mentioned that interesting historical tidbit on the Senate floor, but it never made it into the mainstream press.

Mr. Zak reminded the Republican leaders that Vice President Nixon tried to get the 1957 Civil Rights Act passed by bringing it directly to the Senate floor. Unfortunately, it was a Democratic Congress and the Republicans were outvoted. Mr. Zak suggested that Vice President Cheney bring the judicial nominations directly to the Senate and announce that a majority vote would be all that is necessary for them to be confirmed.

Mr. Schumer has been trying to convince us that it’s the Republicans who are being obstructionists, but the Democrats have a long history of blocking the federal nominations of worthy persons of color. Every time Mr. Schumer brings up the appropriateness of the filibuster, the Republicans need to slam home a reminder that a former Klansman, Senator Byrd of West Virginia, used a filibuster against the Civil Rights Act for 14 straight hours before it came to a vote. The other chief opponents of the bill were Senators Ervin, of Watergate fame, and Albert Gore Sr.

In the past, that sort of information would be buried, but thanks to the Internet and individuals like Michael Zak (www.lincolnreaganfoundation.org), it’s going to be harder for Mr. Schumer to pull the wool over our eyes.