Posted on 07/12/2005 4:57:23 PM PDT by CHARLITE
The four senators who met with President Bush at the White House Tuesday morning discussed a number of potential Supreme Court nominees, but Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said he thinks they've agreed not to name those names.
"We have a long ways to go," Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters after the breakfast meeting at the White House. He said President Bush has hundreds or thousands of names to go through and "he didn't give us any names."
Nevertheless, Reid added, "There were a lot of names discussed at the meeting, of which we're not going to talk about any of those names. I think that's an agreement that we have, and we'll stick by that."
[The names of women and Hispanics did come up, Sen. Patrick Leahy later told Fox News.]
Reid said there's been enough "discussion, debate and contention on judges." He said he hopes to avoid that scenario in the weeks ahead.
Reid said the friendly relationship between the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee - Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) -- have "set an example" of how Reid and Sen. Frist should get along.
"I feel comfortable and good that we are going to be able to have someone who is a consensus candidate. I certainly hope so," Reid concluded.
A consensus candidate is anyone acceptable to Democrats.
Diversity
Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called it a "very productive session," with President Bush listening to the "advice" offered by senators.
Specter said it's possible that the Supreme Court nominee will not come from the traditional circuit courts.
Speaking for himself, Specter said it "would be good to have some diversity" on the Supreme Court, and he mentioned the possibility of having a former senator on the court, as has happened in the past.
"That was one item that the president listened [to]," Specter said. The U.S. Constitution does not require a Supreme Court justice to be an attorney or a judge.
'Uniter'
Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, called Tuesday's meeting with Bush a "first step" in the consultation process, and he also seemed to back the idea of selecting someone from outside the "judicial monastery."
Leahy said whoever the nominee is, it must be somebody who would "unite us and not divide us" and somebody who would garner bipartisan support.
"That would be a great thing to do for the integrity of the court, for the comfort level of the country, because after all, the court is there for every one of the 280 million Americans, not there for any special interest group on the right or the left."
Leahy called this an important decision, and he alluded to the possibility that there may be similar decisions ahead -- an oblique reference to the widely discussed possibility that Chief Justice William Rehnquist may also retire soon.
'Dignity'
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said senators made it "very clear" to the president that they're ready to engage in a "fair" process that "treats the nominee with dignity and respect and that will be conducted in a timely way."
Specter told reporters, "The word ought to go out that the special interest groups vastly overstate their influence" in the selection process; and that much of what they're doing is "counterproductive, and a lot of the times, insulting."
Frist said there's a general agreement that the goal is to have a nominee on the court by early October.
Sen. Reid told reporters there is no timeline for the president to name someone. "I would hope he would do it in the next couple of weeks," Reid said, adding that it's up to the president.
I'd rather have a non-lawyer who's commitment to upholding the Consitution has not been corrupted by law school and the legal profession.
please, please, please, please!!
he's fine on the 2nd, not so fine on abortion. He also was one of the Senator that voted not to impeach Cinton.
I'd love to see a straight-thinking, conservative engineer be appointed.
Steve Largent!!!
Oklahoma - Steve Largent - 97 Lifetime Rating
There has been a very rare whimper, but he's not disappointed us yet.
It was this type of thinking that put Earl Warren on the court and lead to the start of the judicial tyranny that is still tearing the Republic apart. (Warren was a lawyer and prosecutor, but had never served as a judge.)
Because, this is nothing more and nothingless than good cop/bad cop. We're all getting screwed...but to us, it feels better when the pubs do it.
As long as the economy stays the same or grows moderately, we all feel something is really happening, while all the time, our rights are being eroded by those in power, be it pub or dem.
We drilling in anwar yet?
Smoke and mirrors.
FMCDH(BITS)
Yeah, he has. McPain/Findgold is a major one. You think that was a "simple mistake"? Do you think any nomination to the Supremes won't go unchallenged by his buddies on the other aisle? Do you think there's a real difference between the parties?
We're the shmucks here. We're gettin' played by both sides.
BTW, have we started drilling in ANWAR yet?
FMCDH(BITS)
When did he nominate either McCain or Feingold to a judicial position?
But then he did.
And then he complained that the president just listened, didn't talk -- didn't share HIS choices with them.
And Reid said:
Officials familiar with the meeting said Reid was more blunt in private, telling Bush he didn't want to wind up reading about the president's eventual pick in the newspaper without having had a chance to offer his views beforehand.
Let's take a poll to see how many people think that's going to happen, okay?
I can't believe that sentence made it past the editors
Unlikely. Thompson is the guy that have that'll make sure that nominee isn't Borked and is supposed to see the nominee through the process and around the pitfalls. Hard to do if he's the nominee. (Granted, Cheney interviewed potential VP picks and then became the VP pick, but that was different -- Cheney didn't have to guide himself through anything that anyone else wouldn't have had to do.)
TS
Tonight on Dom Giordano's show, Bill Sammon suggested Ann Coulter... I think that would be great...
I wasn't talking about "noms", I was talking about "disappointments".
Guess we're not on the same page.
BTW, are we drilling in ANWAR yet?
feh!...pfffft!
FMCDH(BITS)
His whole political career, he's played the "inclusive card" and then done what he intended all along. When it's not to the liking of the far right wing, they scream sell-out. And the left-wing screams that it was a charade. The moderates and most conservatives think it's great.
It's been a winning strategy and he's been consistently doing it for as long as I've known him.
BTW, drilling will begin in ANWR. There are existing rules about notification of applications for bids to lease, etc. If we're a nation of laws, those have to be observed or repealed and replaced with new ones.
Considering the fact that he doesn't have the brains of a big mouthed bass, it's hard to tell what bait he'll take!
Please, please, please FReepers.
Stop posting these Ann Coulter things without a smiley face.
I've looked this up before, and today's composition of the court is unusually weighted toward the professional judge.
I want to say that there have traditionally been 5 career paths to the Supreme Court, all roughly equally used until recently, and I *think* they are:
1. Politics
2. Executive Branch
3. Private attorney (maybe includes law professor)
4. Federal court
5. State court
This was most recent position before confirmation, and many in one path had experience in another.
I'll have to sit down and actually do it again, but a cursory view of the CJ's is:
Executive branch: 4 (Marshall, Taney, Chase, Vinson)
Politics: 3 (Ellsworth, White, Warren)
Fed judge: 3 (Stone, Burger, Rehnquist)
Attorney: 1 (Jay)
State judge: 0
couldn't figure out: 5 (Rutledge, Fuller, Waite, Taft, Hughes)
Possibly all the ones in the last category were private attorneys.
Hughes: associate justice, 1910-16, presidential candidate, 1916, ? 1916-30.
Taft: US President, 1909-13, ? 1913-21
Nowadays it is difficult to appoint a sitting senator; it would require special legislation to lower the pay.
However the Fred Thompson idea is a good one.
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