GOP hopes to push Pickering through (Democrats willing to use a filibuster on Pickering)

clarion ledger ^ | 3/9/2003 | Ana Radelat

[TLBSHOW]

WASHINGTON

[TLBSHOW]

But Louise Bogard, legal director for the Alliance for Justice — one of the groups that opposed the nominations of Charles Pickering and Estrada — said the fight over Estrada has strengthened the Democrats' resolve to block the promotions of Charles Pickering and other conservative judges.

[CatOwner]

That's it! Too much time is being wasted on these judicial nominations and the "people's business" is not being attended to. Send VP Cheney to the Senate and let him use his constitutional right to force a vote on the floor of the Senate.

Political suicide? Opening of Padora's box? Who the F cares! Once the war starts and Iraq is liberated, no one will care!

[CatOwner]

Padora's = Pandora's

[TLBSHOW]

Unless Frist and the Republicans in the senate get some guts W won't get any of there people voted on much less seated. Either Frist forces the democrats to 24 7 filibuster OR we WILL lose.

The only other opition is to have President Bush make recess appointments for Owens and Pickering and Estrada and just to slam the rats but GOOD every last one of those seats not now filled and have not been filled for almost 2 years now.

That is it folks either one or the other.

If we do neither the Senate will be run by Hillary and the Democrats or as I now call them the Semocrats for the rest of W's term. That is a fact!

Frist should of forced this on the democrats back a month ago instead of being nice to the rats. Send him email letters and phone calls and demand he grow so guts and do what must be done.

The plan of the rats has been laid out time and again here so lets get on with it.


..........
WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- The Democratic filibuster against judicial nominee Miguel Estrada has little to do with the 41-year-old Honduran immigrant.

It is part of a grand design to talk to death a succession of conservative judges selected by President Bush. Democrats are intent on keeping the Senate from voting on any appellate nominations that do not meet the party's specifications.

This extraordinary design, without precedent in two centuries of judicial nominations, was launched January 30 in the office of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. Present were Assistant Leader Harry Reid and six Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats. With all pledged to secrecy, the fateful decision was made to filibuster Estrada's nomination.

That was only the beginning. One Judiciary Committee member there was Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Senate's 71-year-old liberal lion. In private conversations with Daschle and in Democratic caucuses, Kennedy has pressed a plan to prevent President Bush from putting his ideological stamp on the federal bench. As Republicans returned this week from recess, they had no immediate response to this threat.

Internal Senate sources depict a Senate minority on an audacious mission. Rare use of the filibuster to keep a judicial nominee off the bench is only the tip of the iceberg. Multiple filibusters would generate the first full-scale effort in American history to prevent a president from picking the federal judges he wants.

At the January 30 meeting in Daschle's office, the eight senators agreeing to filibuster the Estrada nomination did not discuss his merits or demerits as a nominee for the District of Columbia appeals court, second in importance only to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Rather, the objections to Estrada were political and procedural. His confirmation, they agreed, would set a precedent that appellate nominees need not answer detailed questions and would make it hard to stop him as a possible future Supreme Court nominee. The senators talked about slowing down a Bush "assembly line" of conservative nominees and cited support from an energized Democratic base.

Considering these politicized views, what Kennedy said when he took the Senate floor five days later sounds disingenuous. Demand for Estrada's memos as a government lawyer, Kennedy said, "would be helpful in understanding Mr. Estrada's fitness for a judgeship" -- as if he had not decided to talk the nomination to death.

Off the Senate floor, Kennedy was more candid. According to Senate sources, he urged Daschle to devise a long-term strategy: to make a short list of judicial nominees that the Democrats would keep from ever coming to a vote. Privately, Kennedy talks frankly of a filibuster strategy.

While conceding that Estrada is "intelligent," Kennedy has told colleagues that he must be filibustered because of the need to win an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with the White House.

Kennedy tells his younger associates that Bush's application of an ideological litmus test constitutes the "worst" judicial nomination process he has seen in 40 years of service.

He accuses the president of daring Senate Democrats to keep ideologues off the court and refers to Estrada as a "stealth right-wing zealot." Such comments belie the notion that Bush's nominees would be given a Senate vote if only they would answer some questions.

Such an intractable position raises the question of how Democrats would expect to get any judges confirmed in the event that Bush is defeated for re-election but the Senate remains Republican in the 2004 voting.

The Republican Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, is outraged by the Democratic strategy and ready to respond in kind. But Hatch will not be chairman in 2005, thanks to Republican term limits. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, next in GOP seniority, as chairman might stop the cycle of vengeance.

That's what worries Republican strategists, who talk about jumping conservative Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona above Specter to guarantee a strong hand in the confirmation wars.

Well in advance, there is consideration of blocking a vote on future judicial nominees by a Democratic president until the Republican nominees who had been blocked by filibuster are confirmed. That is the morass into which the Senate is being led by Teddy Kennedy, its second most senior member.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/02/27/column.novak.opinion.kennedy/

[TLBSHOW]

If Iraq will determine the success of the Bush presidency in foreign affairs, the fight over the federal judiciary in the Senate will determine the success of the Bush presidency domestically. The President and Senate Republican leaders cannot afford to "blink" on this one.

George Will put it more starkly on Friday when he wrote, "And if the president does not wage a fierce, protracted and very public fight for his nominee, he will display insufficient seriousness about the oath he swore to defend the Constitution."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/859895/posts?page=

[LibKill]

George Will put it more starkly on Friday when he wrote, "And if the president does not wage a fierce, protracted and very public fight for his nominee, he will display insufficient seriousness about the oath he swore to defend the Constitution."

You can always count on George Will for good writing and truth. No matter how much it hurts he will tell you the truth.

[Holden Magroin]

Forget Pickering; he's 66 years old and will retire in a few years, anyway. Republicans ought to find someone much younger. Unfortunately, they seem more interested in playing games than in packing the courts with conservatives. They want to be able to tell conservative activists, "The Democrats are blocking Bush's nominees!" Meanwhile, Clinton's judges are criminalizing the Pledge of Allegiance, shredding the Second Amendment, and expanding illegal aliens' rights.

[syriacus]

Bogard: the fight over Estrada has strengthened the Democrats' resolve to block the promotions of Charles Pickering and other conservative judges.

Democrats are experts at making up excuses for their bad behavior. I'm sure they were strongly resolved to block the nominations in the first place.

Democrats are "phony if-onlies."

• If only there weren't a fight over Estrada, we wouldn't resolve to oppose other conservatives.
• If only Estrada's memos were released we would vote on him.
• If only Estrada were a mainstream conservative we'd vote for him.

[TLBSHOW]

Unfortunately, they seem more interested in playing games than in packing the courts with conservatives. They want to be able to tell conservative activists, "The Democrats are blocking Bush's nominees!" Meanwhile, Clinton's judges are criminalizing the Pledge of Allegiance, shredding the Second Amendment, and expanding illegal aliens' rights.

,,,,,

I plan to fight the rats and slam the GOP if the Gop does not do what they must do! To me they are doing little more than lip service and playing with the constitution because if it was really important to the gop they would not be caving and letting the rats get away with this, war or no war they have had enough time since almost the start of Feb to do what must be done, instead Frist has been playing games and on that you are correct.

[Grand Old Partisan]

I explained the Cheney option to Senator Frist's team last week. We'll see if they employ it.

[madprof98]

Send VP Cheney to the Senate and let him use his constitutional right to force a vote on the floor of the Senate.

I'm sure this is something I should have heard of, but I haven't. What exactly is this?

[Grand Old Partisan]

I proposed this on a FR thread last Monday or so.

[TLBSHOW]

MONDAY BUMP

[Grand Old Partisan]

We'll see if Frist & Co. seize the opportunity I offered them, or choose to continue being b!tch-slapped by the Democrats.

[TLBSHOW]

I think he must like it because he keeps going back for more...slapping!

[TLBSHOW]

bttt

[Grand Old Partisan]

What does "bump to the top" actually do?

[Fred Mertz]

It keeps this article & thread 'active'. Some folks look at the latest 50+/- posts/replies. They wouldn't see it unless I bump it when they're browsing the discussions.

Like now.

[sinkspur]

I explained the Cheney option to Senator Frist's team last week. We'll see if they employ it.

I'll bet they slapped themselves on the head and said "Shazam! Why in hell didn't we think of that?"

Cheney cannot force a floor vote if the filibuster can't be broken. You were told that over and over.