Posted on 02/14/2003 1:16:05 PM PST by Remedy
The vast left-wing conspiracy has had 645 days to make a case against Miguel Estrada’s appeals court nomination are now using a filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting at all. You’d think their case was pretty strong. You’d be wrong.
First, they say Estrada has no judicial experience. Anyone appointed to a judicial position for the first time has, by definition, no judicial experience. Like most of the judges on the court to which Estrada has been nominated. Like dozens of President Clinton’s appeals court nominees. Good grief, like Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
Second, they say Estrada revealed little during his Judiciary Committee hearing. Were that true, it would hardly justify a no vote, let alone a filibuster. But it’s not even true. Estrada’s hearing lasted for nearly six hours. The transcript runs more than 250 pages. Estrada said plenty. Democrats just couldn’t get him to say anything they could use against him.
Pet Issues
Senate Democrats want to know only how a nominee, if confirmed, will rule on their pet issues. If Estrada revealed little during his hearing, it’s because they asked completely inappropriate questions that no nominee should answer.
Sen. Herb Kohl (D.-Wis.) asked Estrada’s opinion of the Supreme Court’s federalism decisions and whether he agreed with recent district court decisions striking down the death penalty. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.) asked: "Do you believe that Roe [v. Wade] was correctly decided?" Sen. Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.) asked Estrada how he would have decided Romer v. Evans, which held that states may not prohibit special rights for homosexuals.
These senators knew that ethics rules prohibit judges or judicial candidates from opining on issues or cases that may come before them. They knew Estrada would not answer such litmus-test questions. So they asked inappropriate questions and then criticized the nominee for not being more forthcoming.
Confidential Memos
Third, the Justice Department has refused to produce private confidential memos Estrada wrote when serving as assistant to the solicitor general. Every living former solicitor general—Republican and Democratic—signed a letter explaining the obvious: The "unbridled, open exchange of ideas" on which they rely for important decisions "simply cannot take place if attorneys have reason to fear that their private recommendations are not private at all, but vulnerable to public disclosure." Senate Democrats faulted the nominee for not meeting a completely illegitimate demand.
That’s their case. It is based entirely on what is not known. No one has anything negative to say about what is known about Estrada. The Democrats’ slim case is hardly sufficient to justify voting against a nominee, let alone to use an unprecedented filibuster to prevent any senator from voting at all.
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D.-Mass.) said in February 1998 that if senators do not like nominees, they should "vote against them. But give them a vote." Sen. Richard Durbin (D.-Ill.) said in September 1998 that senators’ responsibility "requires us to act in a timely fashion on nominees sent before us. . . . Vote the person up or down."
Feinstein said in September 1997 that the Senate should "debate [nominees] if necessary, and vote them up or down." Sen. Joe Biden (D.-Del.) said in March 1997 that "everyone who is nominated is entitled to have a. . . vote on the floor."
Now, as if history begins afresh with each new day, these senators all support the Estrada filibuster.
Democrats are willing to undermine judicial independence, undermine the integrity of the solicitor general’s office, and undermine the Senate’s constitutional confirmation duty just to keep this Latino off the U.S. Court of Appeals.
What are they afraid of?
Mr. Jipping, J.D., is senior fellow in Legal Studies at Concerned Women for America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization.
That's what advise and consent MEANS, moron...debate and vote. If you don't vote, you have not fulfilled your Constitutional duty.
Rush to Judgment: Estrada nomination has been blocked too long 02/17/2003
There is a time for talking and a time for voting. The time is past for the U.S. Senate to talk about Miguel Estrada's nomination to the federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit. It's time to vote.
Having emigrated from Honduras as a teenager unable to speak much English, Mr. Estrada went on to graduate magna cum laude from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, to clerk for a Supreme Court justice, to serve two administrations in the U.S. solicitor general's office, to win more than a dozen cases in the Supreme Court. In short, the 42-year-old lawyer is talented. Who knew that talent would extend to tying the Senate in knots for days on end.
Democrats by now are in full filibuster. Senate proceedings, as carried on C-Span, resemble the film Groundhog Day, where the main character has to relive the same day over and over again. Every day, it's the same thing. Democrats get up, march over to the podium, shuffle papers and recite their main complaint with Mr. Estrada – that he's conservative, unconventional and unapologetic. That when he had the chance to hand them the rope with which to hang him during his hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he refused to hold up his end.
Democrats haven't liked Mr. Estrada from the beginning. Part of that is due to his ideology – which is decidedly not Democratic. But part of it also has to do with the fellow who nominated him. Democrats don't relish giving President Bush one more thing to brag about when he goes into Hispanic neighborhoods during his re-election campaign next year. They are even less interested in putting a conservative Republican in line to become the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court.
And so they have talked and talked, in hopes that Republicans will back down. They won't. Nor should they.
Republicans certainly stalled their share of appointments during the Clinton administration. But Democrats are being shortsighted in seeking retaliation. It is precisely these sorts of narrowly motivated temper tantrums – from both sides of the political aisle – that turn off voters and make cynics of the American people. When that happens, it doesn't matter which nominees get confirmed or rejected. Everybody loses
At the first parent teacher conference her Spanish teacher had a funny story. When she was reviewing class rolls before the first class of the school year she gasped when she saw the name Ashley Mazza. She told me that this was a Spanish name and certainly this Hispanic young lady would know about the language she did. You see this teacher had only studied Spanish for 4 years in high school and 4 years in college. By the way, my daughters teacher is Oriental!
She told me that she was pleasantly surprised when she called my daughter's name and this cute blonde repsonded. You see my daughter is Italian/Swedish...except
As a child I sat at my Grandad's knee and learned something of our family history. We had fled Sicily when the Garabaldi revolution swept through Italy in the late 19th Century. We had been farmers on the outskirts of Palermo. However, the family bibles show that we had emigrated to Sicily in the 1480s. When Ferdinand married Isabella, part of her dowery was the Kingdom of the Two Sicilys which was the Island of Sicily and Italy from the boot tip up to Naples. Our family was sent to Sicily to plant a Spanish influence on that Island, (which historically has been the crossroads of the Med!
Question? Is my Blondie Hispanic?
BTW she getting straight "A"s in Spanish!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.