Likely new Senate judiciary chairman warns Bush against nominating anti-abortion judges

SFGate.com ^ | 11/03/04 | LARA JAKES JORDAN

[CrosscutSaw]

The Republican expected to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee next year bluntly warned newly re-elected President Bush on Wednesday against putting forth Supreme Court nominees who would seek to overturn abortion rights or are otherwise too conservative to win confirmation.

[patent]

>>>>Frist can just circumvent the committee and bring a nominee to the floor.

BS. Yeah, Frist COULD circumvent Spector, but he won't. Frist will be telling us what will happen when he puts Spector in charge of the committee. The only reason to put Spector on the committee is to stop pro-life judges. Period. If he won't stand up to him now, why would he later?

I've heard Frist has presidential ambitions. This one is make or break with me, and I suspect many other pro lifers. If Frist lets Spector run pro-lifers out of the judiciary, I have no use for him.

patent

[traviskicks]

It is forgotten in all this that Bush said he would not have a 'litmus test' of nominating judges.

So, if he is to be taken at his word, which I believe he will be, we can assume that he will nominate good solid conservative judges.

Personally, my greatest wish is to have a judge declare the federal government's forcible allocation of our tax money to the fat and bloated public school monopoly unconstitutional.

This is especially harmful on minority and the poorest of the poor who cannot afford to move school districts and who may live in democrat areas that oppose all school choice.

[Auntie Dem]

A former district attorney, Specter also bemoaned what he called the lack of any current justices comparable to legal heavyweights like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo and Thurgood Marshall, "who were giants of the Supreme Court." "With all due respect to the (current) U.S. Supreme Court, we don't have one," he said.

Well of course not...All those guys are dead!

And this guy's a senator? Geez...even I knew they were dead.

[glock rocks]

After all the bitching around here about Orrin Hatch... good to see the Scottish Sphincter get some scrutiny.

[The Optimist]

What's the point of winning elections if there is no impact on judiciary appointments? The whole point of getting conservatives elected is to make these tough choices? I get tired of all the calculating. Principle has to trump the politics at some point.

Who gets to decide what extreme is? Charlie Schumer?

[Sola Veritas]

"would characterize myself as moderate; I'm in the political swim. I would look for justices who would interpret the Constitution, as Cardozo has said, reflecting the values of the people."

That is more of that "living document" nonsense. If the "values of the people" change, then they should ammend the Constitution as the founders intended. It is not up to the High Court to ammend it. I want STRICT CONSTRUCTIONISTS on the Supreme Court. Spector is not a moderate, he is a liberal. He is the one pub. I really would have rather not won reelection. At least a dem. doesn't hide behind a cardboard elephant.

The president promised to pick strick constructionists, and I think we moral conservatives have a right to expect him to keep that promise. It is time to use the "nuclear option" on a Senate (Dem. or Rep.) that blocks court appointments.

I am hoping Coburn and other real conservatives going to the Senate will reign RINOs like Spector in.

[Agrarian]

Social conservatives did their part for the conservative coalition. Much of the passion, and attendant high turnout, was amongst social conservatives who felt passionately about issues like abortion, gay marriage, embryonic stem cell research, cloning, etc...

This is why Specter and other socially liberal Republicans have a Republican President who will sign their bills into law rather than a Democrat who will veto them. This is why Specter and other socially liberal Republicans are in the majority party in both houses of Congress, and why Specter will be sitting in cushy Majority Leader offices chatting with Bill Frist rather than caucusing in coat closets.

Many social conservatives had grave reservations about the war in Iraq (I'm one of them), many don't make enough money to make tax cuts particularly attractive (I'm not one of those, but most of my friends, family, and fellow churchgoers are), many don't own a gun, etc...

But the way you win elections is with coalitions, where you put enthusiastic people with different but compatible goals together on the same team.

When I talked to social conservatives, one of the first thing that came out of their mouths regarding why they were fired up to vote for Bush, it was their faith that he would appoint justices to the Supreme Court who would follow the law, not invent it -- and that means overturning Roe v. Wade.

This is not an issue for compromise -- not unless the GOP wants to lose the enthusiasm of conservatives for whom social issues are what provide the passion of their electoral involvement.

[bayourod]

The Democrat Senators have been able to block the confirmation of judges by using the rule that requires a 60% vote to bring the nomination to the floor for a vote.

But that rule expires at the end of this session of Congress.

When the new session begins, the Senators will enact a new set of rules governing the conduct of it's business. These rules will be adopted by a simple majority. We have at least 55 Republican Senators. There is no reason to enact a new 60% rule that will let the Democrats block all of President Bush's nominees.

Let your Senators know that if they vote for a 60% rule that you will no longer be silent when they try to blame their failure to get nominees confirmed on the 60% rule.

[Godebert]

"How can we help prevent Specter from doing this?"

Why would you want to prevent Arlen from doing this. Didn't President Bush and the Republican National Committee support Pro-Abortion Arlen Spectre over his Conservative Anti-Abortion opponent in the GOP Primary? What did they expect?

[Unknown Freeper]

Wasn't there some discussion during the primary that a deal must have been cut in order for Spectre to get the support he got? What would Spectre have agreed to in order to get the support?

What is the process for assuming the leadership? It can't be seniority alone. Can't Frist just remove him from the committee then he would not even have the seniority?

Wouldn't the addition of the new senators cancel out the RINO votes against the original nominees?

[AmericanInTokyo]

I'd say, he better put some ice on it.

We'll fix his wagon. He better not screw with us. We are kingmakers. We on FR and across the conservative American diaspora, can build someone up, just as soon as we can TEAR THEM DOWN. They follow our orders now. Thank you. That is all.

[Spiff]

Senator Frist's Tennessee Offices:

Chattanooga
James Building
735 Broad Street, Suite 701
Chattanooga, TN 37402
423-756-2757
423-756-5313 (fax)

Jackson
200 East Main Street
Suite 111
Jackson, TN 38301
731-424-9655
731-424-8322 (fax)

Kingsport/Tri-Cities
10368 Wallace Alley Street
Suite 7
Kingsport, TN 37663
423-323-1252
423-323-0358 (fax)

Knoxville
Twelve Oaks Executive Park
Building One, Suite 170
Knoxville, TN 37919
865-602-7977
865-602-7979 (fax)

Memphis
5100 Poplar Avenue
Suite 514
Memphis, TN 38137
901-683-1910
901-683-3610 (fax)

[maryz]

Wasn't it spector who got some interventionist support from bush when he was running against a conservative in the primary?

Yes, indeed -- and there were long threads here cursing both Bush and Santorum for stumping for him, and a lot of bitterness. I also read in Novak's column that, after all that, Specter did zilch for Bush in PA -- no campaigning, no appearances, no nothin'!

[eleni121]

I'm not sure how the defense attorney for Ira Einhorn (the Unicorn murderer and the Geragos of his time) who secured Einhorn's release allowing him to escape can set an agenda for this President...

Spector? Keep him off the committee!

[Sonar5]

Ok, here is the rundown Currently..

All the major libs sit on this one.

(R)Orrin G. Hatch
CHAIRMAN, UTAH

(d)Patrick J. Leahy
RANKING DEMOCRATIC MEMBER, VERMONT

(R)Charles E. Grassley
IOWA

(d)Edward M. Kennedy
MASSACHUSETTS

(R)Arlen Specter
PENNSYLVANIA

(d)Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
DELAWARE

(R)Jon Kyl
ARIZONA

(d)Herbert Kohl
WISCONSIN

(R)Mike DeWine
OHIO

(d)Dianne Feinstein
CALIFORNIA

(R)Jeff Sessions
ALABAMA

(d)Russell D. Feingold
WISCONSIN

(R)Lindsey Graham
SOUTH CAROLINA

(d)Charles E. Schumer
NEW YORK

(R)Larry Craig
IDAHO

(d)Richard J. Durbin
ILLINOIS

(R)Saxby Chambliss
GEORGIA


(d)John Edwards
NORTH CAROLINA

(R)John Cornyn
TEXAS

---

Now Edwards is gone, and Orrin can't be chairman, so who else wiould be put up. Specter would have to be moved to another committee, and that won't happen.

Frist has already sent the message and this is specter's response.

Specter will lose this one, since the mandate was so large and clear. I agree to look for the test.

There may also be some rule changes as well, that may affect this greatly whereas Specter would lose some of the power he would have, or mainly the dems ability to fillibuster is now greatly reduced.

Regards,
Sonar5

[RonF]

Continuing:

Rehnquist (sp?) is the most likely justice to leave the court in the near future. He's conservative. If he is not replaced, that leaves the court likely to have a 4-4 split. Since 4-4 splits leave the lower court's decision intact, you could get a frenzy of forum shopping by special interests bring test cases. Consider, for example, that decisions from the 9th Circuit would not get reversed in such a scenario. How much damage would the opposing side take if they simply refused to confirm someone that they might be able to paint as too extreme?

If cloture can be broken, that would be something else. But otherwise, conservatives might be faced with the choice of either compromise or disaster.

[Dolphy]

I figured Specter would try to make a power play.

What power does this aging, charmless man really have? He can get the Senators from Maine and who else?

[kempster]

If Republicans want Evangelical Christians and Catholics to come out like they did yesterday they better figure a way around this guy from PA.

[maryz]

Republicans have term limits on committee chairmanships.

[doug from upland]

He brought it up during impeachment. Scottish law comes back to bite him in the butt.