So far President Bush has been awesome in beating the RATS at their own games. It is way past time for him to devote some attention to this constitutional travesty.My personal vote is to force the RATS to do a true filibuster, 24x7.
Posted on 04/30/2003 7:10:01 PM PDT by deport
Simultaneous Filibusters Lead Senators to Talk About Changing Judicial Nomination Rules
Published: Apr 30, 2003
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senators from both parties floated plans Wednesday to restructure approval of judicial nominees and ensure smoother successions. Each side said the other's was unworkable.
Senate Democrats have pledged to maintain simultaneous filibusters of two of President Bush's judicial nominations - an act itself unprecedented - and are threatening a third.
"I don't think anyone is pleased at the way judicial nominations are going now," Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn said on the eve of the Senate's first showdown vote on Texas judge Priscilla Owen.
Republicans will make their first attempt Thursday to break the filibuster on Owen, a home-state favorite of the president's who has been nominated for a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
Republicans say Owen is more than qualified to sit on the U.S. Appeals Court and that Democrats misrepresented her positions last year when they rejected her nomination.
Democrats say Owen, who sits on the Texas Supreme Court, is an anti-abortion, pro-business judicial activist whose opinions and rulings are overly influenced by her personal beliefs.
"She seems to want to make law to fit her own ideological preconception rather than follow the law as written," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
It takes 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, and Democrats say they have more than enough votes in their 48-member caucus to keep Owen bottled up in the Senate.
Cornyn spearheaded a letter from all 10 Senate freshmen - nine Republicans and one Democrat - calling on the White House and Senate leaders to fix the current process or come up with a new process to confirm judges.
Cornyn says he will hold hearings in his Senate Judiciary subcommittee in May to find a way out of the Senate logjam on filibustered nominees. He wants a ban on filibusters and holds on judicial nominees.
"The Senate needs to find an end to the downward spiral of accusations, obstruction and delay," he said.
Schumer suggested setting up bipartisan nomination commissions in each state to recommend a judicial candidate to the president for each empty judgeship. The commission would be split between parties, and would have to agree on a candidate before the president nominates the person. The Senate would then promise to confirm the person.
"It's our best hope for breaking the vicious cycle that the judicial nomination and confirmation process has been stuck in for years," Schumer said.
Cornyn said Schumer's idea likely would be unconstitutional and would add an unnecessary extra layer of bureaucracy; Schumer said Cornyn's idea to eliminate filibusters and holds would mean that Bush would get everything he wants, which would be unacceptable to Democrats.
Bush also has floated a plan requiring judges to give a year's advance notice of their retirements. The president would nominate a candidate within six months; the Senate would have to hold a hearing within three months and vote on confirmation within six months of the president's nomination.
If Democrats maintain the filibuster on Owen, it will join another ongoing against Hispanic lawyer Miguel Estrada, who wants a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia - the first time two official judicial filibusters have happened at the same time in the Senate.
Republicans have lost four attempts to break the Estrada filibuster, and with a success on Owen, Democrats say they're prepared to have three or even more judicial filibusters going on at the same time.
Democrats have threatened all year to filibuster of U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering of Mississippi, who also wants a seat on the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit. "I think Pickering will have a very rough time," Schumer said. "And I think there will be more" filibusters.
Schumer said other possible targets could be California Judge Carolyn Kuhl, a former Reagan administration lawyer who wants a seat on the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Senate Judiciary Committee vote will indicate whether Democrats will try to filibuster a nominee, Schumer said. The committee has 10 Republicans and nine Democrats.
"If we don't get nine votes against them in the Judiciary Committee, it will be a difficult thing to hold it up on the floor of the Senate," said Schumer, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "That's our rule of thumb."
AP-ES-04-30-03 1947EDT
Democrats would complete Clinton/Reno's ruin of the legal justice system for political advantage..and the shame of it....Republicans would let them get away with it, out of cowardice and lack of conviction. Bummer!
President Bush deserves better, and so do we.
1) A Senate 'rule' is being allowed to defeat the Constitutional requirement for Senate "Advise and Consent". This is a defacto Constitutional Amendment that has not been vetted through the Amendment process found in the Constitution and is thus, on its face, unconstitutional.
2) Nominees are being required to predefine how they will rule on future cases - before they even hear the facts of the case. There can be no greater miscarriage of justice than this.
This has to stop.
Beginning tomorrow, I will be contacting every conservative/ libertarian legal foundation I can find to offer my service as plaintiff for a legal action to stop this travesty.
Any suggestions regarding a choice of Legal Foundation from the FR community would be appreciated.
I hate to be the one to break it to you, fella, but you and me and about 500 other people are the only ones paying attention. The rest of the country is only worried about keeping their jobs and what video to rent on Friday.
The Dems know this and capitolize on it. The Pubs don't know this and are waiting for rightious indignation from the public to force the Dems to back off... and that, I'm afraid, is not going to happen.
Not until we get the President on TV to expose it in less than polite terms to the public. He has to walk them through it - this is how it's supposed to work, and this is how the Democrats are perverting the system.
What a joke to hear Chucky saying this!!!
Fine, Chucky. Since you're such a law and order guy, we'll change the rules and see if you follow them. After all, that's the great liberal mantra these days, isn't it?
We'll see if this ideological liar and hypocrite passes his own litmus test.
The rape of Owen
DemocRATS hate minorities and women with brains.
So far President Bush has been awesome in beating the RATS at their own games. It is way past time for him to devote some attention to this constitutional travesty.My personal vote is to force the RATS to do a true filibuster, 24x7.
The average Joe doesn't pay attention to judicial nominations! This is getting no traction in the country!
The Democrats could set Estrada on fire and it would be page six in most newspapers.
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