Posted on 05/09/2003 8:20:00 AM PDT by Remedy
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Friday proposed changes in Senate rules that would make it easier for the majority to overcome the filibuster tactics minority Democrats have used to block confirmation of several of President Bush's conservative judicial nominees.
"The need to reform is obvious and it is now urgent," Frist, R-Tenn., said in a speech on the Senate floor.
President Bush, in a Rose Garden appearance at the White House, called for quicker action on his nominees.
Bush told a gathering of supportive senators, administration figures and legal community representatives that eight of the 18 men and women he has nominated for federal appeals court judgeships have waited over a year for a Senate floor vote.
"More appeals court nominees have had to wait for over a year in my presidency than in the last 50 years combined," the president said. "This is not just business as usual. This is an abdication of constitutional responsibility and it is hurting our country."
Bush said he has put forward "an historically diverse group whose character and credentials are impeccable. The Senate has a constitutional responsibility to hold an up or down vote."
"While senators stall and hold onto old grudges, American justice is suffering. Dockets are overcrowded and judges are overworked and citizens are waiting to long to hear their cases," he said.
Frist proposed a process in which it would take gradually fewer votes to overcome filibusters preventing final votes on judicial confirmations.
Democrats were skeptical of the Frist plan. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," said Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota. He said the Senate has confirmed 124 judicial nominees since Bush took office and "I don't see much broken."
It now takes 60 votes to end a filibuster. Republicans have failed in six attempts over the past few months to end a filibuster over the nomination of Michael Estrada to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Republicans have also unsuccessfully tried twice to end a filibuster over the nomination of Priscilla Owen to a federal appellate court judgeship.
Under the Frist plan, it would take 60 votes to stop a filibuster on the first try, 57 on the second, 54 on the third and 51 on the fourth. The entire process would take about 13 days, he said.
He said his proposal was modeled after a broader plan, made by Democratic Sens. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Tom Harkin of Iowa in 1995.
"Clearly we have entered upon a new era damaging to the Senate as an institution," he said of the recent use of the filibuster to stop the president's judicial nominations. "A disciplined minority can cast an ever-lengthening shadow over the confirmation process."
US Senate: Art & History Home > Origins & Development > ... I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
Senate Is to Advise And Consent, Not Obstruct and Delay The Framers Envisioned A Narrow Role for The Senate in The Confirmation Process.
United States Senator Jeff Sessions Wednesday, February 26, 2003 Judicial Nominations -- Miguel Estrada
How did we get into this circumstance? How did we get to this point where the ground rules have changed, that we are into an obstructionist tactic, an unfair procedure? What happened? After the last election when President Bush was elected, the New York Times reported that the Democrat majority, the Democratic Senators at that time early in President Bush's administration had a retreat at some location unknown to me, and they heard at that time from three liberal law professors, Lawrence Tribe, Cass Sunstein, and Marcia Green burger. These liberal professors at this private retreat told the Democrats at that time, they should change the ground rules for nominations. They should ratchet up the pressure and they should alter the historic rules of courtesy, the historic presumptions in the Senate, and they should change how nominees are treated. They said: You have the power to do it. Do it, Democrats. Stand up and block these nominees. Do not accept the nominees from President Bush, like this Republican Senate accepted President Clinton's nominees. Fight every step of the way. That is apparently what has happened.
Shortly after that, when the majority in the Senate changed, I served on the Administrative Oversight and the Courts subcommittee. Senator Schumer chaired that subcommittee. He held hearings. He held hearings to argue the point that the burden of proof for a confirmation of a judge should change and it ought to be on the judge to prove he is qualified. That has never been done before in the history of this country. We had Lloyd Cutler, former Counsel to the White House of Democrat Presidents. We had others testify. They testified that it would be wrong to shift the burden to the nominee, it was not the right thing to do. Then he had hearings to say we ought to just consider your politics, your ideology, as he said, and we can consider somebody's politics, and we can reject them if we do not agree politically.
Senators Mull Options to End 'Advise and Dissent'
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) chaired the hearing. He agrees with both Miller and the White House.
"Any exceptions to the doctrine of majority rule, such as any rule of a supermajority vote being required on nominations, must, in my view, be expressly stated in the Constitution," he said.
"For example, the Constitution expressly provides for a supermajority, two-thirds voting rule for Senate approval of treaties and other matters," Cornyn continued. "That's not the case, however, with regard to judicial nominees."
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) prepared a report for the subcommittee entitled "An End to Nomination Filibusters and the Need for Cloture Motions," which argues that the Senate can, by a simple majority vote, amend its own rules to eliminate the use of filibusters against judicial nominees.
Under current Senate Rule XXII, the Senate is bound to allow unlimited debate unless 60 senators vote to "invoke cloture," ending discussion on the matter under consideration. When Rule XXII was adopted, the sponsors included language requiring a two-thirds majority vote to amend the rule.
ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow believes that provision is not binding on the current members of the Senate.
"Nothing in the Constitution, the Federalist Papers or other source documents indicates the obstructive and delaying tactics by legislative minorities were intended to be the source of the Senate's deliberative care," Sekulow wrote.
"A willing majority of senators [could] make new rules for the Senate," Sekulow concluded, "either eliminating the filibuster or substantially curtailing the impact of a filibuster by eliminating the supermajority requirements."
Miller's proposal, examined in light of the ACLJ analysis, appears to be both constitutional and practical. Democrats may have a harder time opposing Miller's strategy, as well, both because he is a Democrat and because it is modeled after a proposal originally introduced in 1995 by Tom Harkin (Iowa) and Joseph Lieberman (Conn.), both Democratic senators.
THE AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE, INC. JAY ALAN SEKULOW Chief Counsel Given the prerogative of the majority, and the respect for that prerogative expressed in Brown, Metzenbaum, and Davis, a willing majority in the Senate could make it in order for the Senate immediately to take up the questions proposed above, regarding the making of the Senate’s rules, the prohibiting of filibusters on judicial nominations (or the phasing out of them), and the confirmation of Miguel Estrada (or other nominees). And while sixty votes may not be found to invoke cloture, Brown, Metzenbaum, Davis, and their predecessors in law and Senate practice confirm that all that would be required to make the necessary rule changes is a majority of a quorum of the Senate – a sufficient number of Senators to insure that the power of the body to act has arisen.
Judicial Nominations, Filibusters, The Constitution: When A Majority Is Denied PART 1 " To reject on constitutional grounds a supermajority requirement for cloture regarding judicial nominees does not compel the same conclusion regarding legislation. The Founding Fathers worried about an excess of law making and erected barriers to that end, including a presidential veto. Filibustering to defeat legislation works towards that same constitutional end. In contrast, the Founding Fathers voiced no concern over the appointment of too many federal judges or judges echoing a uniform philosophy of judging. Filibustering judicial nominees with a supermajority cloture rule advances no constitutional objective or sentiment. Indeed, in the particular cases of two circuit court nominees now before the Senate, the filibustering wars with the constitutional goal of an independent judiciary to check legislative excesses. It is transparent that several pro-filibuster Senators aim to block confirmation of the nominees because fearful they might check congressional usurpations under either the Commerce Clause or section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. In other words, the filibusters are calculated to weaken judicial review of federal statutes.
Judicial Nominations, Filibusters, The Constitution: When A Majority Is Denied PART 2 " My advice is simple: follow the law of the Constitution. The original understanding gives unfettered nomination authority to the President. So too, the text allows the full Senate to reject any nominee for any reason, though commentary at the founding supposed that the reasons would have far more to do with intellectual quality or capability than partisan disagreement with the nominee’s judicial perspective. Beyond that, President Bush has put the matter simply and directly: "the Senate has a constitutional responsibility to exercise its advice and consent function and hold up-or-down votes on all judicial nominees within a reasonable time after nomination."
Now if the response to this is that the Senate, by constitutional text, has sweeping authority to determine its own rules under Article I, section 5, that is, with respect, an incomplete and evasive response. As the Supreme Court unanimously held in United States v. Ballin (1892), "[t]he constitution empowers each house to determine its rules of proceedings. It may not by its rules ignore constitutional restraints or violate fundamental rights, and there should be a reasonable relation between the mode or method of proceeding established by the rule and the result which is sought to be attained." In a constitutional system, power, like freedom, is not without limit, and the exercise of one provision to thwart the reasonable nominating discretion of the executive and undermine the functioning of the judiciary is subversive of the separation of powers and the constitutional system.
This is especially so when adopted senate rules disregard the principal of majority governance by imposing textually unauthorized super-majority requirements, and where those supermajority requirements are the product of rules never adopted by the current Senate.
The Senate can always change its rules by majority vote. To the extent that Senate Rule XXII purports to require a two-thirds majority to invoke cloture on a rule change, Rule XXII is unconstitutional. It is an ancient principle of Anglo-American constitutional law that one legislature cannot bind a succeeding legislature. The great William Blackstone himself said in his Commentaries that "Acts of parliament derogatory from the power of subsequent parliaments bind not...". Thus, to the extent that the last Senate to alter Rule XXII sought to bind this session of the Senate its action was unconstitutional. A simple majority of the Senate can and should now amend Rule XXII by majority vote to ban filibusters of judicial nominations.
Leading scholars in this area of law such as John O. McGinnis of Northwestern University, Michael Rappaport of San Diego University, and Erwin Chemerinsky of the University of Southern California all have written that the Senate Rules can be changed at any time by a simple majority of the Senate. More importantly, Vice Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Hubert H. Humphrey, and Nelson A. Rockefeller have all so ruled while presiding over the United States Senate. Some commentators have gone even further in challenging filibusters of legislation as unconstitutional, as did Lloyd Cutler, White House Counsel to Presidents Carter and Clinton. Indeed, eight years ago, 17 very distinguished law professors, led by Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman, opined that a new Rule in the House of Representatives purporting to create a 3/5 requirement for enacting new tax increases was unconstitutional. The Ackerman letter wisely called for limiting the proliferation of new extra-constitutional, super-majority rules – counsel that the Senate should heed here.
What will happen if the filibuster is allowed to spread to the new area of judicial confirmations? It will next spread to the resolution every new Senate must pass to organize itself, set up Committees, and apportion staff and other resources. The filibusters next expansion will be one wherein a minority of 41 Senators will claim they are entitled to equal slots and Committee resources as are enjoyed by a majority of 59 Senators. This is the logical extension of the filibusters protection of minority rule under the inexorable Calhounian logic now being played out.
Bush and Frist and everyone under the sun can do or try anything they want and God Bless them for it, but it ain't going to happen.
This is the way the DemonRATS legislate and liberals get their laws made: FROM THE BENCH!
That power will not be allowed to be taken from them and the rule of law by The Consitiution to be re-instated... Look how the liberals power worked in New Jersey: liberal judges threw out the law and declared that voting laws in NJ are what they say they are and not how they are written the the NJ law books. That is the way the liberals want the entire country at the federal level to operate.
Conception is the God-given right. Killing babies can never be a God-given right!! It's a murder of convenience and a doctor who does this is a PAID murderer.
They may be running out of ways to keep it going. The DEMONCRAT coup on judges MUST NOT STAND. If not that will be the end of 225 years of an independent judiciary. That would be tragic. Minority rule does not apply to Presidential appointments, period.
They can't stop anything in committee unless they can regain the majority. The committees are proportioned.
US Senate Republican Policy Committee Nation’s Newspapers Demand End to Filibuster
Updated through April 8, 2003
At least 128 editorials from 90 separate newspapers from 33 states and the District of Columbia have argued that the Democrat-led filibuster should end and/or that Mr. Estrada should be confirmed.
Only 16 editorials in 12 separate newspapers have argued that Mr. Estrada’s nomination should be blocked by filibuster or that Senators need more information before voting up-or-down.
The following chart represents every newspaper editorial published this year that could be located – not including op-eds, even if signed by a member of the newspaper’s own editorial staff – regarding the pending nomination. Each editorial is listed by date, and where a newspaper has editorialized more than once on the subject, a separate date is provided. Not all of the many editorial boards opposing this filibuster necessarily favor Mr. Estrada, and they are marked accordingly. In addition, some editorial boards have stopped short of commenting on the merits of the nomination or the filibuster, and are marked as "ambiguous" and not included in the totals above.
I preferred Talents plan because it didn't change the rules, it merely used the parlimentary process.
I'm leary of this nuclear plan because I'm not sure how it will impact conservatives in the future.
POST #14 & If you are aware of any other editorials that should be included in the above, regardless of position, please contact the Senate Republican Policy Committee at 224-2946.
I'm leary of this nuclear plan because I'm not sure how it will impact conservatives in the future.
Conservatives are going to have to EDUCATE the mindless moderates:
ED : Administration Cites Recent Surveys Showing Lack Of Basic Knowledge Of U.S. History
ED : Senate Panel Hears that Ignorance of U.S. History Poses Major Security Threat
Only half would vote for Constitution
Why is Frist soft-pedaling this?
NCPA - Opinion Editorial - Republicans Have Become The Majority ...
As Republicans and Democrats absorb the significance of last week's election results, a few things are starting to become clear. For one thing, Republicans are finally starting to settle into the idea that they are the majority party in this country. They have not thought so since 1932.
I worked in the Senate in 1980, when Republicans won control there for the first time in almost 30 years, and I remember clearly the sense that this was all just temporary. In contrast to the Democrats, who treated Republicans like dirt, the latter were very deferential. They didn't treat Democrats with the same disdain, because in their hearts they knew it wouldn't last.
The memory of 1946-48 and 1952-54, the last times that Republicans held either house of Congress, were very much in their minds. Although no one ever said so, I think most Republicans in the Senate thought they would probably lose the majority in 1982. Consequently, they were fearful of alienating the Democrats, whom, they thought, would soon be back in power, lest they be punished as a consequence.
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