Posted on 11/08/2003 11:12:23 AM PST by diotima
Don't confuse this emotional outpouring with facts or reason.
Transcript: Sen. Bill Frist on 'FOX News Sunday'
The following is a transcribed excerpt from FOX News Sunday, Oct. 26, 2003.TONY SNOW, FOX NEWS: Capitol Hill once again has become a hotbed of controversy and political tension. Democrats and Republicans are doing battle over judicial appointments, health care, pre-war intelligence and much more.
Joining us to discuss the hottest topics in an exclusive interview, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.
Also here, Brit Hume, Washington managing editor of Fox News.
Leader Frist, let's start talking about judges. Janice Rogers Brown had a hearing on Capitol Hill the other day. And upon going to the Hill before the Judiciary Committee, she was immediately laid into by Democrats on the committee.
She also had to deal with a series of insults on the outside. I want to show you, first, a cartoon that appeared on what describes itself as a black political Web site that basically, that has her in a fright wig and seems to imply that it's an insult to be included in the same company as Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.
Now, my question to you is, it is pretty clear that any seasoned minority candidate with good credentials who goes before that committee is going to get raked over the coals and is not going to get confirmed.
What are you going to do to ensure that Janice Rogers Brown becomes a federal judge?
U.S. SENATE MAJORITY LEADER BILL FRIST, R-TN: What the Democrats are doing, and they clearly have a strategy that is laid out, is to obstruct by engaging in a filibuster which is unprecedented, a partisan filibuster, one after another, sequentially, of candidates. We've seen it with two so far, and we're likely to see it before the end of this session with another three or four of them — or really, the next two weeks.
And Janice Brown may well be one. We have not taken her to the floor yet, but when we will, I predict that she will be filibustered.
It's unprecedented, in the 219 years in this country, that we have a denial of the very simple concept of advice and consent.
SNOW: Senator, I understand that, but what has happened, we have seen the case of Miguel Estrada, well qualified, who finally just threw up his hat and said, "Forget it, I'm just not going through this."
It has been suggested that there are a number of options available to you, as Senate majority leader, that may help force the action rather than simply saying, "Well, they're doing something unprecedented."
One is to go back to the old-fashioned filibuster. Make people stay in all night. Make it the central political event in Washington. Why won't you do that?
FRIST: Because at the end of that 24 hours, we still don't get advice and consent. And that's what you, the media and both the American people need to understand. These aren't the days of Jimmy Stewart. You can stay in overnight and two nights, three nights, four nights, and you can go on. But at the end of that time, still, they can, with advice and consent being denied, deny us an up-or-down vote. And that is wrong.
The question is, what are we doing? Basically, we're bringing very good candidates forward. They are filibustering — unprecedented. We will continue to push to break the filibuster.
Number two, what you can do is change the rules of the United States Senate. That process is under way, working with Senator Lott. It's going through the Rules Committee. That rule — it's a bipartisan Frist-Miller Amendment, what that would actually do is allow every candidate within two weeks to have an up-or-down vote. That's working its way through the Congress. You may well see it in the next couple of weeks.
Those are the sorts of options, and there are other constitutional options that we could engage...
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS: Like what?
FRIST: Well, what you could do is just ram them right through the United States Senate. If we did that, using a parliamentary move, and it would establish...
SNOW: The parliamentary move would say that you need a simple majority to adopt a judge, and that you cannot use a filibuster to prevent a vote.
FRIST: That's right, and that's what the rule change says. And that's why I'm addressing it first with the rule change. If we fail that, all options are open, and we could do that.
What would be the potential price you'd pay: no choice for D.C. schoolchildren here, no Medicare...
HUME: In other words, they'd filibuster and block everything
FRIST: ... no education bill, no supplemental bill to support our troops overseas.
I'm not going to put that all at risk until we exhaust every reasonable, balanced tool that we have within our grasp. And that's what we're doing in a sequential, steady, balanced way.
HUME: Let me — Senator, let me see if I understand. What you're saying is that if you went to the option of simply using majority vote to interpret the rules to mean that a simple majority could pass a judge and that filibusters wouldn't apply, if you did that, everything would then be blocked and filibustered?
FRIST: Absolutely. It absolutely could be. And that's the risk you take. And I'm not going to that risk with American lives overseas, funding for our troops overseas, health care for our seniors. We're not going to take that risk right now, at this time. But remember, all options are open.
HUME: That being the case, and the corrective measures you have in mind being somewhere off in the future, why should the Democrats not think that they won on this?
I mean, it is — you say it's unprecedented. Presumably if that's the case, the public would be outraged by it. There's no evidence of that at this point, that I can see.
Aren't the Democrats winning on this, stopping these judges and, so far at least, paying no discernible political price?
FRIST: Well, you know, I'm always careful to say this, but at the same time, they are. I think, really, it is inexcusable.
And we're going to break it. Just watch. We're going to break it. We've got a plan. You come forward and say stay in overnight, and the American people say stay in overnight. Remember, if we stay in overnight or two nights or three nights, that doesn't change a thing.
HUME: Well, the one thing...
FRIST: They can still deny advice and consent.
HUME: Well, that's...
FRIST: It shows we're fighting...
HUME: Isn't it...
FRIST: ... and so, we may well do that. But at the end of that 24 hours, you don't break the filibuster. It doesn't change a thing.
HUME: But isn't it the case, Senator, that if you were to do that — it has been a long time since that's happened in the U.S. Senate — that it would focus attention on this issue and on the tactics being used against these judges, or nominees, that it's not getting now?
FRIST: Yes, we may well stay in overnight, or a couple of nights, or three nights, and then you will see at the end of that you haven't changed the system, but it would focus attention on it. And maybe it would help you educate the American people that it's no longer the days of Jimmy Stewart. You can't have somebody up there filibustering, expect to break the filibuster, and have the rules change. That day is over.
So what you have to do is change the Senate rules, and that's what we're systematically doing. It's gone through Senator Lott's committee, which does government rules. It's likely to come to the floor of the United States Senate...
HUME: It'll be filibustered, isn't it?
FRIST: It could be filibustered, that's exactly right, once again...
HUME: That's the story of the Senate, isn't it?
FRIST: Well, that's right. We've got this United States Senate which requires 60 votes to do anything. Sixty votes.
SNOW: All right. So the staging is, you may keep them overnight for dramatic effect. Then you may go ahead and try to get a rules change that could be filibustered. And if that fails, then you call upon the parliamentarian to say, it's a majority vote...
FRIST: And at the same time, we're bringing people, as you started off, like Janice Brown to the floor of the United States Senate. Judge Pickering, very soon to the floor of the United States Senate. You saw what happened to Miguel Estrada. You've seen what's happening to Justice Pryor, who's actively being filibustered.
The fact that the Democrats are allowing the United States Senate to give advice and consent, they're denying a vote. We don't say, get all these people through. We're saying, you can choose, but give us an up-or-down vote.
SNOW: So...
FRIST: That's what's being denied. And eventually we're going to break it.
SNOW: ... are you guaranteeing, then, that each of those judges, every judge in limbo right now, will get a vote on the U.S. Senate floor?
FRIST: I'm going to do everything within my power as majority leader of the United States Senate to see that every one of the judicial nominees coming from the president of the United States gets what we constitutionally deserve, an up-or-down vote. I will use everything within my power.
SNOW: So you have the parliamentary means to do that, so I would presume that that means that, sooner or later, they're going to get votes.
FRIST: Sooner or later they're going to get votes.
Again, I have all options open. That's one of the nice things about being, you know, in the majority, all options are open.
SNOW: Senator, I understand that, but what has happened, we have seen the case of Miguel Estrada, well qualified, who finally just threw up his hat and said, "Forget it, I'm just not going through this."
It has been suggested that there are a number of options available to you, as Senate majority leader, that may help force the action rather than simply saying, "Well, they're doing something unprecedented."
One is to go back to the old-fashioned filibuster. Make people stay in all night. Make it the central political event in Washington. Why won't you do that?
FRIST: Because at the end of that 24 hours, we still don't get advice and consent. And that's what you, the media and both the American people need to understand. These aren't the days of Jimmy Stewart. You can stay in overnight and two nights, three nights, four nights, and you can go on. But at the end of that time, still, they can, with advice and consent being denied, deny us an up-or-down vote. And that is wrong.
This is nothing but an object lesson attempting to get people off their backs about "going 24/7" with the debate (which is no longer a viable option).
... [T]hat's what you, the media and both the American people need to understand.
End the stonewalling!
Breaux and Landrieu are mine also. They've heard from me on a regular basis about this very thing but come Monday morning they'll hear from me again. I'll contact the local media, too. I've just finished emailing friends and family around the country urging them to show their support for the president's nominees.
Could you ping the DC Chapter?
Here's the contact numbers for everyone if this information is needed by you:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
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