I dunno, didn't Frist already give the "Run Away" order?
He has to, or the Judiciary Committee with Taunt him a second time!
Posted on 11/04/2003 1:59:47 PM PST by EternalVigilance
Washington, DC
11-4-03
As the unprecedented filibusters of President Bush’s judicial nominees in the U.S. Senate continue to multiply, Republican Senators struck back hard against the Democrats this morning in a Capitol Hill press conference.
The purpose of the event was to rally support for the President’s nomination of California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals; a nomination that has garnered yet another filibuster threat from Senate Democrats.
Phyllis Berry Myers of the Centre for New Black Leadership (CNBL), who helped to organize today’s effort, said, “This is the first salvo in our fight to get an up or down vote in the Senate for this fine American, as well as for the growing number of the President’s other nominees who are being blocked in such an unfair and unprecedented way.”
Senators Rick Santorum, Orrin Hatch, Jim Talent, John Cornyn, and Jeff Sessions stood with black leaders from across the nation in front of a backdrop that read “Stop Obstruction Now!”
Michael Steele, Lt. Governor of Maryland; Larry Thompson, former Deputy Attorney General under President Bush; Brian Jones, General Counsel for the Department of Education and former Counsel to California Governor Pete Wilson; Niger Innis, National Spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality; and dozens of other black leaders spoke on behalf of Justice Brown.
Senator Hatch, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, had harsh words for Senate Democrats, saying that they now claim that any Republican, any conservative, or any pro-lifer is "out of the mainstream", and is therefore unqualified to sit on any federal court. He called this claim “pure unmitigated bunk”, and said, “We have to stop this”. In response to their claim that Justice Brown was out of step, he pointed out that in the California Supreme Court’s most recent session, she had written more majority opinions than any other justice; and that in her last retention election she had received 76% of the votes.
He talked of Justice Brown’s background as the daughter of a sharecropper in the South, and how she had as a single mother risen to the Supreme Court of our nation’s largest State; and called what was happening to her “the new form of liberal discrimination.”
In response to press questioning about the filibuster process, and whether Republicans would force the issue, Senator Santorum said, “This is a crisis. We will spend more time on the floor.” He also promised a minimum of 3 cloture votes on the nomination.
In a spirited answer to the same question, Senator Hatch talked of a ‘constitutional alternative’ in reference to the use of a non-debatable point of order. He said that in order for that method to work, the Republicans would need to simply have 51 votes seated. He also said that if this course were pursued, the Democrats have threatened to “blow up the Senate”.
Jim Talent, the freshman Senator from Missouri, said that this nomination should be routine and not a source of contention that required the calling of press conferences. He said that Janice Rogers Brown’s story was “a story that shows character”. He said that the treatment she is receiving is “unfair”, and that the Democrat’s tactics were “a recipe for anarchy and division in the Senate.”
CORE’s Niger Innis spoke passionately about the civil rights battles of the 50’s and 60’s, making the point that “the Party that filibustered civil rights legislation then is the same Party that is filibustering well-qualified minority nominees for the courts today.”
It is time for a full-court press by Republicans. It is time to make the Senate Democrats pay the price for their actions.
Please post any and all lamestream press reports here for discussion.
I'm told that C-Span will air the press conference later in the day. As soon as someone knows when, please let us know.
EV
This is a critical issue. If you have ping lists of your own, I ask that you please use them.
Thanks!
He also said that if this course were pursued, the Democrats have threatened to “blow up the Senate”.
Look, if terrorists take hostages, sometimes there is property damage and danger to innocents in the freeing of those hostages. But what you DON'T do is give the terrorists what they want!
I dunno, didn't Frist already give the "Run Away" order?
He has to, or the Judiciary Committee with Taunt him a second time!
there's a Will Rogers retort lurking around here somewhere.
I couldn't agree more. Of course, that includes basically all of the Democrats.
Talk-Talk-Talk!! Whine-Whine-Whine!
Grow a pair and get tough and dirty with the Rats if you want to impress someone!
It is.
Niger Innis (a great friend of FR, by the way) made the point eloquently that once upon a time blacks had to destroy the stereotype that 'all blacks LOOK the same'. Now the stereotype that needs to be attacked is 'that all blacks THINK the same'.
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