Posted on 10/13/2004 5:46:40 AM PDT by OESY
With three weeks to Election Day, it is time for Republicans to close the deal with swing voters -- independents, Southern and Midwestern moderates, blue-collar households, Catholics, and Hispanics. The tactics of Senate Democrats and their liberal allies are now so nakedly partisan that the judiciary could well become the issue that wins tight Senate races and presidential battleground states for the GOP. (A secondary benefit of campaigning on this issue is that it establishes a clear "judiciary mandate" -- an advantage when addressing the Senate's rule for filibusters and a bonus when the time comes to nominate a Supreme Court justice.)
Since the beginning of George W. Bush's tenure in the White House, liberals have waged an unprecedented campaign to block, delay and besmirch his judicial nominees. The tone was set when the left smeared Charles Pickering -- a federal judge, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and a longtime proponent of racial reconciliation in the New South -- as a racist, and blocked his nomination.
Tensions boiled over when the president nominated Miguel Estrada, a Honduran immigrant with an impeccable record, to the D.C. Court of Appeals. The minority Democrats, led by Tom Daschle, blocked him with a filibuster. Never before had the filibuster been used to block a judicial nominee with majority support. The filibuster had the effect of twisting the Constitution's explicit 51-vote judicial confirmation standard to an unconstitutional 60-vote hurdle.
Leaked Democratic memos indicate that Mr. Estrada was targeted, in part, because, "he is Latino...." Judiciary Democrats, led by Sens. Edward Kennedy, Patrick Leahy and Richard Durbin, agreed to block or slow-walk particular nominees at the behest of liberal campaign donors, including the trial lawyers, the NAACP, and the national abortion providers' lobby....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Since the Republicans will likely retain control of the Senate, it is Constitutional at the beginning of a new congress for the Senate to review and change its rules. These changes would take only a majority vote.
They should specifically change the cloture rule by adding a clause that exempts voting on presidential appointments from filibusters.
Excellent editorial. And given his position in the Administration, let's hope it's a sign of things to come.
This is BS, they had the right to push the issue this past year but they didn't have the balls to do it.
Face it, until the Republican wimps in the Senate get a 60 vote super majority they will continue to cave to the Democrats.
Once again, we loose because Frist el al don't have the political nads to fight like men. Their Gentlemen's club is worthless.
The Impeachment Trial of Clinton told me all I neede to know about those spineless cowards.
Sometimes the problem is with Republican presidential voters who do not reinforce their top-of-the-ticket vote with support for conservative House and Senate candidates: examples, ND and SD!
It is not BS...it is the Constitution. It is something that must be done at the time of seating a new congress.
The issue is NOT Frist....the issue is the waffler Rino republicans like Snowe, Chaffee, McCain, et al. They passed word to Frist that they would not go along with the nuclear option.
Those Republicans (total of 5, I think) gave the democrats an effective lead in the Senate of 54 - 46 or so.
It would be nice to pick up about 5 new pubbie senators. Perhaps the above 5 will go along with a new senate rule change specifically directed at presidential appointments.
After Newt Gingrich's failures in 1996, the GOP will never again "shut down" the government. Republican leaders are too timid (fearful of pejorative headlines) to take really tough action. They just trim a little around the margins.
Still, so long as voters reelect such "spineless cowards," we will continue to have more spineless cowards. Much of the damage to which you refer happens before the Republican primaries are even held. No viable alternatives emerge to these "moderates," and most are renominated by default or against underfunded primary opposition. This year in AZ for instance no one to my knowledge dare challenge the popular John McCain for renomination, and he has no serious general election opponent either. People in AZ worship John McCain.
Forcing the Democrats to go on with a filibuster 24/7 is not the GOP "shutting down the government;" it's the converse. Ever since they let Daschole get away with it, the Democrats have run the Senate as a minority.
yeah but it was the gentlemanly thing to do...
Cowards the whole lot of them.
Yep, the whole lot of them. Sad fact is that the GOP is committing demographic suicide when they allow the Slave Party to perpetuate its policies by any means.
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