Posted on 10/27/2003 1:40:47 AM PST by Elkiejg
WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, frustrated by the audacious campaign of Democrats blocking judicial confirmations, begins a counter-offensive this week. He will start by returning to one of President Bush's nominees generally given up for dead. The effort will accelerate throughout this congressional session into mid-November, with one roll-call vote after another.
None of this may confirm any of the federal appellate court nominees marked for defeat by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Democratic grand master, because they are deemed too conservative. This effort is intended to "refocus" (the word used by GOP strategists) on the unprecedented filibuster campaign to prevent a sitting president from selecting his own judiciary. The refocused struggle would peak early in the 2004 election year with a frontal assault on filibuster rules. Although no justice seems ready to leave the Supreme Court of his own volition this year, control of the highest court is ultimately at stake.
The GOP base, needed intact to re-elect George W. Bush, is angry -- angry with Kennedy's Democrats for blocking the judges, angry with Frist's Republicans for not trying harder. That could cost Bush's re-election if nothing is done.
Many Republican senators, mirroring their business supporters, would like to concede Kennedy's triumph on judges and get on with their own agenda. The GOP's will to fight has seemed lacking. Sen. Orrin Hatch, who as Judiciary Committee chairman manages this issue for the Republicans, has been passive. He has not aggressively demanded floor time to debate judges after the Senate refused seven times to invoke cloture on Miguel Estrada's now withdrawn nomination for the important District of Columbia Circuit.
But rank-and-file Republicans care deeply. The president on the road mentions the failure to confirm judges in nearly every speech, and it evokes more applause than anything else. Republicans are sensitive to complaints that Frist is too timid to wage a 24-7 strategy to let Democrats talk themselves to death. They respond that some 45 disciplined Democrats cannot be forced to surrender.
Now, Frist is about to mount a campaign in three phases, lasting through what's left of this year's session.
Phase One: Start this week with a cloture vote on the nomination of U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering Sr. of Mississippi for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans. Pickering, bottled up in the Judiciary Committee during the 2001-02 Democratic interregnum, has just been sent to the Senate floor.
Phase Two: Next, order a cloture vote for the second time on Alabama State Attorney General William Pryor for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta. Claims by opponents that Pryor's "deeply held beliefs" taint him for the court have produced accusations of anti-Catholicism.
Phase Three: Vote on three female nominees. Attempts to get cloture on Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen's nomination for the 5th Circuit has failed three times. California Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl's two-year-old nomination for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco is coming to the Senate floor for the first time. Just released by the Judiciary Committee and already threatened with a filibuster is California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, an African-American.
Failure to reach 60 votes for cloture on each of these three women is scheduled to be followed by consideration of the bill co-sponsored by Frist and conservative Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia. That measure would reduce the number of votes needed to end filibusters on nominations. That, too, will be filibustered in order to defeat it.
All this refocusing is intended to set the scene for a bitter battle in next year's session of Congress. At that time, an effort may be made to rule out of order a filibuster against judicial nominations -- the "so-called" nuclear solution. This would require only 51 votes, but Frist does not even have that many today because of reluctance to tamper with the traditions of the Senate.
Whether or not Bill Frist's offensive eventually places any of these well-qualified judges on the bench, it will sound a stentorian refusal to surrender. That means a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Senate have not acquiesced in letting Ted Kennedy determine the membership of the federal judiciary. The battle resumes today.
Mr. Novak:
Your article on the above subject is accurate except that the power behind Teddy is the Un-American Way and Ralph Neas - an unelected anti-America elephant in the room. It's time this group with it's strangle hold on the Senate be exposed.
To the Left, judges are the one sure means of getting their agenda enacted, without the messy problem of selling it to voters.
This filibuster crap is just their way of stonewalling the President while pandering to their base voters. To them, this is just "tit-for-tat" revenge for the President having the temerity to win the election against their expected victor, Gore. For that "crime" against all that is Leftist, they will allow NO judges appointed by the President to be confirmed to higher courts.
Sad to say, the President will probably have to win re-election, PLUS pick up some more Republicans in the Senate, to get ANY of his upper-court picks confirmed. I don't even think the "nuke option" will do it.
I challenge you to name 51 Senators that would vote with Frist to change the rules.
You can't do it. The GOP Senate caucus is divided, and no amount of name-calling directed at Frist can chane that.
Only elections on November 2, 2004 can.
Because they don't have the votes.
Although I appreciate the GOP pushing this issue forward, Novak's assessment reads to me like they are making the effort primarily to appease GOP voters, rather than out of any real conviction and principle. This is pandering and I don't like the sound of it.
But the voters outside the base, the undecideds and independents that generally end up deciding an election, probably won't care. Judicial nominations are generally off their radar screen. I'm not saying the 'Pubs shouldn't try to do what they can on the nominees, like doing the 24/7 filibuster thing, or simply not allowing any Rat legislative proposal to even see the light of day on any vote, or cutting funding for Rat staff and offices (petty, but effective), but they have to realize that attempting to make it an election issue probably won't cut much with the portion of the electorate they need to win. Those people will likely go to the polls focusing on economic issues and maybe national security, and the 'Pubs have to come up strong on those issues (especially the economy).
I knew it.
Republicans have indicated they will refuse to participate.
By saying it's about "tampering with traditions" they get to avoid VOTING on the nominees themselves. Most Rinos are more than glad to see the democrats taking the heat off of them by filibustering these constructivist judges.
There is no difference between a rino republican and a democrat.
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