Posted on 05/25/2005 11:06:04 AM PDT by South40
Democrats say they feel bullied by Republican rule
WASHINGTON – California's two senators may have voiced delight about the Monday compromise that averted a showdown on the filibuster, but the GOP's threat to abolish one of the most potent political weapons available to Democrats clearly left sore feelings toward Republicans and the White House.
"Today, there is not really active consultation by this administration in most cases," Sen. Dianne Feinstein told her colleagues this week. "Instead, there appears to be a kind of disregard for the opinions of all Democratic senators."
Sen. Barbara Boxer had similar sentiments, telling her colleagues that Republicans and President Bush have demonstrated "an arrogance of power." Republicans, she said in a Senate speech last week, "did not get enough of what they want . . . and they are throwing a fit."
A partisan fight over the confirmations of federal appellate court nominees Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown evolved in recent weeks into an arguably more important battle over whether to preserve the filibuster, a Senate tradition allowing a minority of lawmakers to stage unlimited debate that blocks a vote on something, or someone, they oppose.
Feinstein and Boxer, both part of the Senate's Democratic minority, argued that doing away with the filibuster would create such ill feelings that the chamber would become a rancorous place ruled by passions rather than reason.
"The Senate will most certainly face a loss of civility, a loss of respect for differences," Feinstein said in a Senate speech Monday. "Political messages will overwhelm substantive policy, and political potshots will drive our debates, rather than the best interest of the American people."
Meanwhile, Boxer sought to portray the president as something of a spoiled autocrat by noting the Senate had approved 208 of his judicial nominees and rejected 10.
"This is a 95 percent success rate," Boxer said. "I ask the people of this country to think about what it would mean in their lives if they got 95 percent of what they wanted."
On Monday, Senate leaders struck a compromise: Democrats agreed to stand aside and allow swift votes on three circuit court nominees, including Owen and Brown, and to withhold filibusters on future circuit court and Supreme Court nominees except in "extraordinary circumstances." In return, the GOP agreed it would not change Senate rules to prevent filibusters on judicial nominees.
Feinstein and Boxer have argued that Owen and Brown are too conservative for lifetime appointments to the federal bench. While each called Monday's compromise "a victory" for Senate tradition, their remarks in the past days revealed long-simmering sentiments about how the GOP has operated in Congress and the White House over the years.
"Checks and balances are not new," Feinstein told her colleagues. "Our country's 200-year tradition of working through our differences is not new. The need for consultation is not new. . . . What is new is the majority party's decision that if you win an election, you should have absolute power."
Some Republicans have suggested that Feinstein and Boxer acted hypocritically, because in the past, each called on Republicans to stop delaying tactics that prevented the Senate from voting on some of former President Clinton's judicial nominees.
On Sept. 16, 1999, Feinstein said "a nominee is entitled to a vote. Vote them up; vote them down," she said when conservatives tried to block votes on two nominees to California's 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "If we don't like them, we can vote against them. That is the honest thing to do. If there are things in their background, in their abilities that don't pass muster, vote no."
On Jan. 28, 1998, the day the Senate confirmed Barry Silverman to the 9th Circuit, Boxer said that whether "the delays are on the Republican side or the Democratic side, let these names come up, let us have debate, let us vote."
Feinstein acknowledged that six years ago, when Senate Republicans tried to block the Clinton judicial nominees, "many of us . . . were frustrated."
"At that time, I urged my colleagues to allow a vote," Feinstein said in her speech Monday. "However, I did not advocate breaking the (Senate) rules . . . as a way to force Republicans to their knees."
...and THEY are the acid that set this erosion in motion.
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble...
Like anyone really cares.
Which would change the way thing are now ... how?!
Conservative Republicans actually concern themselves with compromise with the likes of these? Push the button at your earliest convenience, Senate MAJORITY LEADER Frist!
A true majority leader would've said something to the minority like, "Yes, we respect that your opinion differs from ours--we acknowledge that it does, and have accurately recorded your position in the minutes of this body. Having said that, the Constitution does not require a cloture vote on a judicial nominee, nor does it give an exceptional power in its 'advise and consent clause' to prevent up or down votes on nominated candidates. Your minority advice, as formerly mentioned, is recorded in the minutes. The majority of this body however, consents to the nominees, and vote for their confirmation."
"We sorely regret that there's been a downshift in the level of decorum and civility in the tone of the national conversation... and it's all the fault of the evil brain-dead scumbag bastard Republicans whom we hate along with everything they stand for."
Qwinn
Typical Democrat tactic:
Create a problem, then complain that Republicans did it.
That's the real point. Dole made a great leader with his sardonic grin and all kinds of trouble for Clinton.
I voted for and gave money for a majority party, not a spineless appeasement party.
I think Boxer is the RATs' useful idiot. They trot her out whenever they need to hurl vile invectives toward the President or the GOP. Reid is another. I think that is why they chose him as their fearless leader. The RATs needed someone they could control and who could not think for himself, just spout the party line.
One would think that the Republicans could counter this idiocy with something better than they have.
Have these wenches ever had a real job out there in America? The world is not a civil place. Civility is way overrated...it's not how things get done!
Senator Feinstein, I'm going to tell you a story told to me long ago by my step-father. He's a minister and a councelor. A woman in his parish came to him and wanted to ask his advice about what to to regarding her husband. She complained that he never tells her what he's doing. He goes out of town on business trips, and he doesn't tell her about it until the day before he goes. She was furious at him for doing this.
My father asked her "what do you do when he tells you that he has to leave town?"
She replied that she gives him hell because she hates it when he leaves town, and she's mad that he didn't tell her sooner.
He said to her "The choices that you are giving your husband are to tell you the day before he leaves and get yelled at for one day, or to tell you sooner and get yelled at for a longer period of time."
Often times if we don't like the way others respond to us we need to look at the one person that we have control over.
"Today, there is not really active consultation by this administration in most cases," Sen. Dianne Feinstein told her colleagues this week. "Instead, there appears to be a kind of disregard for the opinions of all Democratic senators."
I'm a Citizen in California and I approve this DISREGARD!
The article called the 7 pikers "leaders".
Civility is only eroded when the Republicans talk back to the Dems.
The way things are going with global warming (to which hot air from Congress contributes greatly...), hell may freeze over soon and it could happen!
What "civility"?
Don't forget Harry Reid and his "Bush is a loser" speech.
Yeah those pubbies are so mean-spirited.
Ditto.
Now that's what I'd like to do to a Rat with my light saber.
BOXER/Hillary '08 Just Can't be Beat!!!
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