Posted on 04/13/2005 3:49:52 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob
I followed a link from a thread on FR to PFAW, and read their statements about filibusters of judicial nominees. I then sent them the following note in the Comment part of their form:
Question/Comment Ladies & Gentlemen, I practice in the US Supreme Court. I write books and articles on Con Law. I know the legal history of the US inside and out. You have money, you have researchers.
You know as well as I do that the legislative filibuster is two centuries old, but the judicial filibuster is both new and recent. You also know that the Advice and Consent Clause requires only a simple majority for confirmation of presidential nominees. So, I ask you to stop lying about American legal history. This is also a test case to see whether you will read and respond to other than uninformed applause in any note. J. Armor, Esq.
Back came the following response:
Hello:
It appears our legal department have examined the same legal history and reached a different opinion than you have. Detailed information about our position is available here:
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=17707
Sincerely,
People For the American Way Foundation
Note that an e-mail to PFAW, a lobbying organization, was answered by a reply from the PFAW Foundation, which is a (501(c)(3) charity, and is supposed to be kept separate from PFAW itself. Also, that reply referred back to the PFAW website, not to anything belonging to the Foundation. These are facial violations of the Internal Revenue Code, IMHO.
I sent the following response, to which I expect no reply:
Ladies & Gentlemen,
The good sign is that your response to me shows that someone is actually reading the e-mails you receive.
The bad news is that your website does not provide "detailed information" about the filibuster as you claimed it did in providing a click link. I have no doubt that PFAW did have its lawyers look over its published information. Having spent 35 years at the bar, however, I know that roughly half of all lawyers take whatever legal position favors the organization which pays their fees.
The details missing from your "detailed information" are at least these two critical points. 1) For 200 years, the filibuster was NOT used on judicial nominations, beginning with the first ones made by President Washington under the Judiciary Act of 1789. Any competent and honest lawyer would have insisted that this fact be included.
2) For the same 200 years, the Senate consistently took the Advise and Consent Clause in the Constitution to mean that a simple majority was required, no more, to confirm any judicial nominee. Again, any competent and honest lawyer would have insisted that this fact be included.
Your lawyers have evidently assisted PFAW in putting forward a plausible-sounding series of lies about the filibuster and judicial nominations. That may be your idea of "the American way." It is not mine, nor is it the idea of those who created the United States and designed its Constitution and its government.
Very Truly Yours,
John Armor, Esq.
John / Billybob
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Congressman--surely PFAW and the ACLU are well aware of their deceptiveness. It's a deadly game of chess--propaganda--they are surely conpiring in a hostile takeover of the largest and wealthiest Corporation in the world, the United States of America.
"Public opinion be damned," is no doubt their private position. They seem to subscribe to the Other Golden Rule: "Them that has the gold, makes the rules." And it would be very interesting to know exactly how much of the ACLU and PFAW Foundations came from taxpayers.
IT IS TIME TO STOP THEM! We can do so by FORCING Congress to take simple, effective action -- which is why there is a special ACLU/PFAW/Communism section in the Activism Toolkit thread below:
FR March For Justice II Grassroots Activism Toolkit
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1374533/posts
These are facial violations of the Internal Revenue Code, IMHO.
A quick note to the IRS?
The Dems have made the case that the Senate is the place where the Founders intended for passions to cool so that nothing happens that we'll regret later. Yes, that's the way Congress intended it, but it hasn't been that way since the 17th amendment was ratified. If it's overturned, we may finally keep the Byrds, the Boxers, the Kennedys out of the Senate.
So, did you report them to the IRS?
And that's not a bad thing; their arrogance, that is. Pride does come before the fall, and the fact that the death of the modern leftist in America is a long drawn out affair that we're in the midst of.
Just look at the South (speaking as an obvious northerner here...): the Northeast libs which I have around me @ work all dismiss this vital region as backwards and dumb (the recent post-election "how could they be so dumb???" article gets them in a nutshell). They still think it's the South of pre-civil rights revolution while conveniently forgetting that it was a democrat-controlled power apparatus that was propagating the racist theme back then ( one guy I know emphatically states that Republicans are racist, and the fact that the South now votes strong Republican proves it). Yet it is this region and the midwest - sans the major population centers of course, where lib(leftist collective...)eral policies still prevail - from which our greatest strength comes (and, imho, from where our greatest hope for setting the Nation back on course springs...).
But the handwriting's on the wall - and I don't say this from being complacent. The left certainly prop up their own elites, be it the overwhelming presence of leftists in Academia, or in the MSM, or the current dhimmi-crat party... but theirs is a culture of death, a living paean to nihilism. Nor will their numbers grow - that same love of death is succinctly distinguished by the twin bookends of abortion and euthanisia upon which they base so much of their core values.
They kill themselves coming and going... our job is to make sure that they continue to lose political power so they don't kill us with replays of destructive policies reminiscent of Carter & Clinton in the time they have remaining on this earth.
Yes, unfortunately for them Filibusters were not allowed in the Senate by the Founders. Until 1806 debate could be cut off by "calling the question".
The first attempt to "filibuster" a presidential nominee was on January 16 1792. There was an attempt to block consideration of the nomination of William Short as minister to the Hague in which the tie vote was broken by VP John Adams:
"The numbers being equal, the previous question was by the Vice-President determined in the affirmative. On the question to advise and consent to the appointment of William Short, of Virginia, now Chargé des Affaires of the United States, at Paris, to be Minister resident for the United States, at the Hague, as nominated in the message of the 22d December; "
Years later (1797) an attempt was made to block President Adams nomination of his son John Quincy to be minister to Prussia which was also ended by "calling the question".
Interestingly neither attempt was directly to block voting on the nominee. The opponents tried to avoid the vote by debating whether the position was needed. The early Senate voted on every nominee AFAIK. I wonder when was the first actual use of the filibuster to block voting on a nominee.
In 1806 the Senate dropped the rule allowing calling for the previous question because it could be used as a delaying tactic itself.
Very interesting. Good job!
"People for the American Way" is even more than an oxymoron, it's the exact opposite of truth-in-advertising. Except for the world "people," that is... and even that is open to interpretation.
I would think that you could also make a legal objection to their TV ad which pretends to show a Republican firefighter who wants me to call my senator and demand he protect the filibuster, With gasoline at $2.30/gal do they really think that many care very much about arcane procedures in the
Senate? They really know how to pick em.
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(a) Contacts, or urges the public to contact, members of a
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ACTION organization by reason of this paragraph (c)(3)(ii) for
that year if it is not denied exemption from taxation under
section 501(a) by reason of section 501(h).
(iii) An organization is an ACTION organization if it
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Activities which constitute participation or intervention in a
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behalf of or in opposition to such a candidate.
(iv) An organization is an ACTION organization if it has the
following two characteristics: (a) Its main or primary objective
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On August 5, 1789, the Senate, for the first time, rejected a nomination and in so doing, established the tradition of "senatorial courtesy." Two days earlier, President Washington had submitted 102 appointments as collectors, naval officers, and surveyors to seaports. The Senate readily agreed to all but one -- Benjamin Fishbourn of Georgia. Earlier in his career Fishbourn had offended James Gunn, who in 1789 had become one of Georgia's two senators. This seemed to have been Fishbourn's only shortcoming. In rejecting him, the Senate shared the view of some of the Constitution's framers that senators were best qualified to judge the fitness of nominees from their states. The president submitted a replacement, and a tactful letter of protest. He noted that the Senate probably had its reasons for rejecting Fishbourn, but he urged members who might question future nominations "to communicate that circumstance to me, and thereby avail yourselves of the information which led me to make them and which I would with pleasure lay before you."
http://www.museumofleftwinglunacy.com/archives/2005/04/saving_the_fili.html
"Under the proper definition, prior to the 108th Congress, there were four filibusters against judicial nominations, including one Clinton nomination.
The Senate took 15 cloture votes on 14 different nominations (four of them Clinton nominations).
Eleven of those cloture votes passed, and those nominations were confirmed. Three of these were on Clinton nominations. These, by definition, were NOT filibusters. Four cloture votes failed. These were filibusters.
However, three of these were TEMPORARY filibusters, and the nominations were later confirmed.
-One of them was on a Clinton nomination, Brian T. Stewart nominated to the U.S. District Court. He was filibustered by Democrats, not Republicans. The 55-44 vote on cloture on 9/21/99 was to leverage confirmation of more Clinton nominees, which Republicans agreed to and Stewart was confirmed 93-5 on 10/5/99.
-The cloture vote on J. Harvie Wilkinson's nomination to the 4th Circuit on 7/31/84 failed, but a second cloture on 8/9/84 passed and he was soon confirmed.
-The cloture vote on William Rehnquist's nomination to be Associate Justice on 12/10/71 failed, but he was confirmed the same day without having to take a second cloture vote.
-The cloture vote on Abe Fortas's nomination to be Chief Justice on 10/1/68 failed on a vote of 45-43. This means he did not have support of a majority in the Senate, and the 43 votes for the filibuster included 24 Republicans and 19 Democrats. The vote of cloture functioned as a test vote on his nomination, and President Johnson quickly withdrew the nomination. His nomination was on the floor for four days, and he was not blocked by a minority.
Thus, the current filibusters are ABSOLUTELY UNPRECEDENTED. They are the first permanent (as opposed to temporary) filibusters against nominations with majority (as opposed to minority) Senate support."
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