Posted on 03/17/2005 8:33:14 PM PST by CHARLITE
On March 15, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and his liberal associates held a press conference and vowed to shut down the federal government if necessary to maintain the Democrat’s filibuster tactic against President Bush’s judicial nominees. According to Reid, Democrats will stop all Senate activities except essential operations and national defense.
Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) responded to Reid’s press conference: “Senator Reid’s threat may inspire the Michael Moore wing of his party, but it will anger and confuse mainstream Americans.”
Sean Rushton, executive director of the Committee for Justice noted that Reid’s media event was “kabuki theater for wealthy, liberal, Democratic financial supporters” and that “Smart Democrats want the Republicans to take the filibuster away from them. They know judicial filibusters are hurting them politically.”
And on March 16, MoveOn PAC (headed by Eli Pariser), People for the American Way and liberal Senators gathered at a Washington, DC, hotel to declare their opposition to Republican efforts to restore Senate tradition on the use of the filibusters against judicial nominees. Mother Jones magazine describes Eli Pariser as a “virtual peacenik” and a “hell raiser” who was brought up in a leftist anti-war home. MoveOn.org is a far left group that received funding from atheist/one worlder George Soros to defeat President Bush
Keynote speaker was Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) who has stated that changing Senate rules on filibusters is unacceptable—although he proposed changes in the rules in 1977, 1979, 1980, and 1987 to stop filibusters. In 1979, for example, Sen. Byrd stated: “This Congress is not obliged to be bound by the dead hand of the past.”
Sen. Byrd recently compared Republican efforts to restore tradition to the Senate on filibusters as akin to what Adolf Hitler did in Nazi Germany to gain political power. According to Byrd, “Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality. He recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law on his side.”
Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) has pointed out Byrd’s hypocrisy in opposing changes in the rules governing filibusters. Sen. Cornyn has noted that the Senate has always had the power to establish new Senate precedents or to restore older ones: US Senator John Cornyn : Release.
The Senate leadership under Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) is considering restoring Senate tradition by revising how the Senate handles the filibuster of judicial nominees. The filibustering of judges began two years ago by liberal Senators and Democrats are vowing to shut down the Senate if Frist and his colleagues attempt to restore tradition.
Sen. Frist issued the following statement on March 15: “I am committed to getting the work of the American people done in the Senate, which includes advice and consent on the President’s judicial nominations as outlined in the Constitution. Never before in the history of the Senate has a nominee with clear majority support been denied an up or down vote on the Senate floor because of a filibuster. To shut down the Senate would be irresponsible and partisan. The solution is simple: return to 200 years of tradition and allow up or down votes on judges.”
C. Boyden Gray and Kay Daly have both provided detailed memos to the media on the history of the filibuster by Senate liberals and the damage it has done to the “advice and consent” role of the Senate in confirming the president’s nominees. Read Gray and Daly’s memos and send copies to your two U.S. Senators: Bust The Filibuster Of President Bush’s Judicial Nominees!
To get a feeling for how Democrats view President Bush’s nominees, read a note written in 2001 by a staffer of Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) on the strategies to be used in blocking Bush judicial nominations. The staffer says that “…most of Bush’s nominees are nazis.” This is posted on the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary web site.
The Judicial Confirmation Network has also just published the results of a survey of American voter attitudes on a variety of topics, including judicial nominations. The survey discovered that 82% of registered voters say qualified judges should get an up or down vote in the Senate!
According to Wendy Long, Counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, “People see through these aggressive and negative attacks waged by some individuals and groups on the left and they want it to end. They want Senators to do their jobs and hold a straight, up or down vote on nominees based on their qualifications, not the baseless, negative rhetoric of the left.”
The survey also found that the arguments made by such partisans as Harry Reid and Robert Byrd are considered “highly suspect.”
Voters are also angered by judicial activism, including recent court cases involving the legalization of certain kinds of child pornography; banning the Pledge of Allegiance because it contains “under God” in it; allowing minors to get abortions without parental consent; as well as legalizing homosexual marriages.
In addition, 70% of those surveyed believe the Senators who are blocking Bush’s nominees are just playing partisan politics.
When is a filibuster not a filibuster? When the 'filibustees' do not have to get up and talk round the clock, just threaten the filibuster and the other side caves.
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