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To: ElPatriota

Spector promised he would vote with us.


38 posted on 11/02/2005 6:20:05 AM PST by rwfromkansas (http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=rwfromkansas)
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To: rwfromkansas

When? Where did he say this?... I would be surprised if he said anything like that so soon in the game. If he did, that would be excellent news, big news.


39 posted on 11/02/2005 6:40:53 AM PST by ElPatriota (Let's not forget we are all still friends despite our differences :))
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To: rwfromkansas
Spector promised he would vote with us.

AFAIK, he's been non-commital, and tends to be AGAINST the nuclear option.


Still, he's [Specter] hopeful that Mr. Bush's filibustered judicial nominees can be confirmed without employing the "nuclear option."

Mr. Specter said he's studied the filibustered nominees and thinks he can find ways to pick up Democrats on them.

He will begin with Department of Interior Solicitor William G. Myers, nominated to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, for whom he said he can get support from Democratic Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Charles E. Schumer of New York.

Specter wary of 'nuclear option' | February 08, 2005

Myers is out of Committee, and has been on the Senate's Executive Calendar since March of this year.

How come no debate and no confirmation vote? Has Specter decided that Myers is no longer important, now that Myers is out of Committee? Does he consider his job complete in this regard?

Undecided Republicans Are Big Unknown

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 28, 2005; Page A04

Frist can lose only five Republicans, and three appear almost surely gone. Sens. Lincoln D. Chafee (R.I.), John McCain (Ariz.) and Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) have condemned the proposed rule change so sternly that party leaders assume they will side with Democrats. Many Republicans also expect to lose Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), although she remains publicly uncommitted. Collins "believes that the filibuster has been overused but would like to see the situation resolved through negotiation rather than a rule change," her office said yesterday.

If Collins, Chafee, McCain and Snowe oppose the change, then Frist could suffer only one more GOP defection. Speculation hangs most heavily on Sens. John W. Warner (Va.), Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Arlen Specter (Pa.), all of whom say they are undecided.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/27/AR2005042702088.html


[Senator SPECTER] It is my personal view that the option of a filibuster for extraordinary, egregious circumstances ought to be retained [I have elsewehre noted that this might be gauged as a Judge that the Senator would entertain impeaching, if seated] , but not in the context of the way it has been used in the immediate past, as a pattern of delay that is directed at getting even or getting back. ...

The Presiding Officer sits in the Vice President's chair by designation, and the clock above him ticks. It has the feel of a Hollywood stage. We are set for a countdown, where second by second, the hours and minutes go by as we come to the critical votes, the first of which will be the cloture vote on Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen. And what may follow, when the count reaches zero, when the roll is called--if it is to be called--is a vote on the constitutional or nuclear option. It is still my hope we will avoid that vote.

Either way the vote comes out, it will be harmful to the Senate. If the option is rejected, it will embolden the Democrats, as well as whichever may be the minority party at any time in the future. It will embolden the minority party to recklessly use the filibuster, as I think it has been used in the 108th Congress. It may embolden the minority party further to filibuster nominees like John Bolton, whose nomination for U.N. ambassador is very much in doubt. If the option is passed, it will embolden the appointers into having greater latitude on the nominees who may be submitted.

When you deal with the doctrine of separation of powers, there is a well-established principle that to have a little play in the joints is a good thing, where it is uncertain as to how a vote will turn out. And I think at this reading, it remains uncertain how a vote on the constitutional or nuclear option will turn out. There is a greater chance for compromise.

In an earlier floor statement, I analogized our controversy here to the controversy between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the Cold War. I have seen some of my colleagues pick up on that analogy. If there is any certainty in our troubled world--if the United States and the Soviet Union could avoid a nuclear confrontation on mutually assured destruction--so should the Senate.

Mash here -> 109th Congress - Senate - May 20, 2005
Navigate to: 7 . EXECUTIVE SESSION (Page S5565)

I find Specter's, "If the option is passed, it will embolden the appointers into having greater latitude on the nominees who may be submitted." to be particularly troubling. He is asserting that the Senate has the right, under the Constitution, to circumsrcibe a President's choice of nominees under the perceived threat of filibuster - under the proposition that an obstructionist minority has the right to exert poser over the President.

Specter is part of the problem here. A big part of the problem.

51 posted on 11/02/2005 8:21:50 AM PST by Cboldt
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