Posted on 02/25/2005 2:38:43 AM PST by kingattax
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said he will do everything he can to help ailing Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) overcome Democratic filibusters of President Bush’s judicial nominees, including use of the so-called nuclear option to allow an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.
Hatch’s reemergence as the top Republican on the committee — at least temporarily — places him back on the hot seat at a crucial time. Conservative groups, which strongly criticized Hatch at times when he headed the committee, are pushing Senate Republicans to press the nuclear button.
Still, Hatch said he will be a placeholder for the 75-year-old Specter, who had a 105-degree temperature before announcing last week that he is undergoing treatment for Hodgkin’s disease.
“Arlen feels he’ll be able to do this job, but you need to know that this is a gut-busting job,” Hatch told The Hill on Thursday just before filling in for Specter as the committee approved a long-debated overhaul of bankruptcy laws. “But Arlen’s capable of doing it, and I’m going to help him every way I can.”
Hatch, who stepped down as chairman last year because of term limits, said he’s “really praying” for Specter.
“I think the world of him,” Hatch said. “We’ve been close friends all these years, and, in spite of the differences we might have philosophically, Arlen’s a hard worker and a very good lawyer.” Hatch added that he expects Specter to be able return to full-time status.
Hatch, who remains ranking Republican on the committee, made it clear he will support Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) if he seeks to change Senate Rule 22 — the so-called nuclear option — which requires 60 votes to end filibusters of judicial nominees that reach the floor. He declined to say when the nuclear option would occur but suggested that it is a question of when, not if.
“I would like nothing better than to see a restoration of the Senate tradition of allowing up-or-down votes” on judicial nominees, Hatch said.
Last week, just before Specter disclosed he was being treated for cancer, President Bush renominated 12 candidates for the U.S. Court of Appeals who were blocked by Senate Democrats, and eight for the U.S. District Court, while Hatch was chairman.
If Rule 22 is changed, it will take only a majority to end a filibuster. In the last Congress, when Republicans held only 51 seats, they were never able to get more than 55 votes in their attempt to end filibusters of those nominations.
Specter, who was just elected to a fifth term, has told colleagues that, with Republicans now holding 55 seats, he hopes to win enough Democratic votes by starting with the least controversial circuit-court nominees. But Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has declared he has little interest in debating “the merits of nominees already found too extreme by this chamber.” Hatch said it appears that a majority of senators, including some Democrats, want to see “this filibuster crisis” ended. “This would return the Senate to the tradition of up-or-down votes once the nominees reach the Senate floor. And it would be binding on both Republicans and Democrats. … I think it’s abysmal that the Senate’s got itself in this mess.”
Hatch ridiculed Reid’s claim that there has “always been a 60-vote” threshold for judicial nominations. “That just simply isn’t true. The only 60-vote threshold is the 60 votes required for cloture under Rule 22.”
He said Democrats’ efforts to turn “a cloture supermajority into a confirmation supermajority never happened before the 108th Congress. Never, not once.”
Hatch accused Democrats of trying to confuse the public about Senate rules that apply to judicial nominees as opposed to nonjudicial nominees.
“They keep shifting their categories … the definitions and the labels, because comparing apples to oranges is the only way they get some people to buy this propaganda. They know that before the 108th Congress the cloture rule, Rule 22, was never used to deny confirmation to majority-supported judicial nominations.”
Even though Rule 22 does not differentiate filibusters for nominees and legislation, Hatch wants to preserve the option of filibustering bills: “I would fight to my death” to “keep Rule 22 alive, with regard to legislation.” The 70-year-old senator, in his fifth term, said Reid’s attitude toward blocking judicial nominees contrasts with that of his predecessor, Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who was defeated after Republicans portrayed him as an obstructionist for blocking judicial nominations and legislation.
“Harry has to argue their case, although it’s a very poor argument. In all honesty, it’s a dangerous thing because we could get to a point where people of great stature but who have written controversial law review articles, or who have written an opinion with which the minority disagrees, would be prevented from serving on the court.”
Hatch traced the origins of the controversy over handling judicial nominations to 1988, when President Reagan nominated Associate Justice William Rehnquist as the new chief justice, when he said Democrats “tried every trick in the book” to defeat him, even though Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, “the two leading liberals on the court called him the leading intellect on the court.”
Hatch called the partisan view of the judicial nominating process “the most dangerous thing, in my estimation, that has happened around here in years because [judges] are the people who are appointed for life.”
Asked why he and Reid, a fellow Mormon he describes as “a very good friend,” can’t resolve their differences, Hatch said, “Harry’s an honest man, but Harry is stuck carrying out the wishes of his caucus … and he doesn’t control that caucus.”
Reid spokesman Jim Manley said, “The Democratic caucus is more united than it’s ever been.” He added that it’s “the constitutional duty” of senators to scrutinize the administration’s nominees and likened the possible use of the nuclear option by Senate Republicans to how House Republicans have changed their rules.
Declaring that “there’s no excuse for filibustering judges,” Hatch said he’s also “examining whether there’s an excuse for filibustering executive nominees in general once they hit the floor.
What is so nuclear about it?? Confirmation requires 50 votes+VP Cheney and not 60.
exactly
Good night everybody... I mean good morning... I'm going to bed
have a good morning/night..lol....take care
I have voted for Bill Frist twice and if he ever wants another one from me he had better show some brass.
We're in trouble. All smoke, no fire.
i already lost confidence in Doc Frist..i call him Trent Lott Jr. Neither one had or has any testicular fortitude.
What is it with these southern Senator's???
Trent Lott has been on my list for years. We lived on the Mississippi/Tennessee border for a long time.
I expect that our leadership should act like we own the World when we are in "power".
maybe a new generation of TRUE conservative senators could change that, but don't expect Frist and Lott to be something they aren't.
Lott and Frist are Conservative enough, just not bold enough for me. And you can throw Lamar Alexander in there too!!!!!!!!!
Federal term limits are needed to get the permanents out of there.
IMO Frist is setting just the right tone.
To act like a bully would play into the dims hand. As it is, there is a lot of leverage to get the obstructionist dims out of office.
I'm there if needed, says Hatch
Wow, I feel better now knowing that. /sarcasm
I can say there will be business as usual.
Hatch and Specter, Liberal clones separated at birth.
Let's go over this. The Republicans control The House, The Senate, and The Presidency. Not only do they have majority control over these institutions they keep gaining seats.
Based on these facts with Frist at the helm I believe your TF argument would have been the wrong approach to take at this juncture in our nations history. You should not change course or stategy midsream when the path you're on is leading straight to success!!
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FOX NEWS CRYING TOWEL ALERT |
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Sen. Hatch: Being a Senator is "a gut-busting job." |
hahaha
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