The Next Woman Nominated to the Court: This Time, No Death of a Thousand Cuts

Special to FreeRepublic ^ | 29 October, 2005 | John Armor (Congressman Billybob)

[Congressman Billybob]

Yes, like most of the public and the press, you missed the fact that the original 2nd Amendment in the Bill of Rights (12 amendments were sent out for ratification) kept getting ratified by more and more states. Finally, in 1992, 3/4ths of the states had said yes to it, and Congress declared it ratified.

John / Billybob

[traviskicks]

well said. Some speeches and quotes from JRB:

http://www.neoperspectives.com/janicerogersbrown.htm

[deport]

I actually think Bush will reach out across the aisle and try to accommodate the likes of Harry Reid with a nominee Reid will like even more than Miers.

---

People on this forum want things from the President yet they claim he isn't a conservative in their mold and jump his case at the drop of a hat and then wonder why.... IMO, the President is one that takes an assessment of the situation in front of him and makes a decision on what he thinks can be accomplished with the least disruption. I think that has been his mode from before he was Governor of Texas. He didn't let the MBA, etc get lost in his methods of operation.

He can be bull headed but at the same time he wants to accomplish other things before he leaves office. Thus I don't think he'll take the stuff it in your face approach to the Senate but rather try for consensus. I maybe totally wrong but I don't think it will take long to find out.

[Congressman Billybob]

More than a year ago, I noted that Senator Reid had backed away from a filibuster against a Supreme Court nominee. I thnk Reid read the tea leaves and realized that the American people will NOT put up with the idea that the Supreme Court is short one continuing Justice, because the Democrats don't want to have a vote.

It is out there that Justice O'Connor wants to leave the Court to be with her seriously ill husband. A Democrat filibuster would deny a vote to a (presumably) capable nominee, and condemn O'Connor the personal right to return to her home and her husband.

That, plus the actions of the Gang of 14, lead me to conclude that there will be no filibuster -- and if Reid attempts to lead one, it will fail before the "constitutional option." The Democrats are the ones that call that the "nuclear option," and it takes 51 votes to work in our favor, not 51 votes to defeat it.

John / Billybob

[gakrak]

Thank you Lord for you have answered our prayers. Let the choice be the best possible conservative available. We are ready for the fight and we are also ready to nuke the opposition. With the full wait of the American people we will prevail and take back our country. Amen and Amen.

[SirLinksalot]

But why do we INSIST that we need a WOMAN ?

Why not nominate the BEST candidate regardless of gender or ethnicity ?

That has always been my point.

This fixation on diversity and affirmative action isn't going to get us the best justice.

Let us not reverse the issue. FIRST, determine the criteria for the best SCOTUS justice, THEN nominate the best person you can find who will fit that criteria.

If it happens to be a woman, GOOD. If not, GOOD anyway.

[samadams2000]

Keep Andy the Rino Clown Card away from this process.

[saveliberty]

I am very open minded and do not need the nominee to be any specific person, but granted it wasn't visible from my earlier comment.

It is a fair comment that we shouldn't speculate. :-)

[Congressman Billybob]

One is known by one's enemies, as by one's friends. The organizations who came out against confirmation of Judge Brown to the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit are the heart of the Democrat machine. And they represent less than half of the electorate, and far less than half of the Senators.

As Sun Tsu correctly observed, the time to attack is when your enemy is weak. That list of organizations is currently week. Time to attack them with a judicially conservative nominee. Methinks.

John / Billybob

[lepton]

1992? Have I missed something?

Well, it was sometime in the nineties. It took a long time to be ratified.

[nickcarraway]

BUMP

[Rodney King]

Keep Andy the Rino Clown Card away from this process.

Amen.

[nickcarraway]

There are several qualified nominees. Why isn't Janice Rogers Brown one of them? The one qualification I see most strongly in her, compared to other candidates, is she seems least likely to change in office. She isn't afraid to take an unpopular stand, if it's right. She has also been very influential on her peers.

[nickcarraway]

Senators protect other Senators. She would be confirmed with at least 90 some votes.

[You Dirty Rats]

If President Bush and Senator Frist believe they won't get a filibuster or have the votes to break a filibuster, then by all means he should nominate JRB, Edith Jones, Miguel Estrada, etc.

I freely admit that I don't know what the Senate will do. NOBODY predicted ahead of time that the Gang of 14 would pull the rug out from under us.

IMHO it boils down to what Specter does. He killed the Bork nomination and saved Thomas. He has always been the key swing vote on the Judiciary Committee; as Chairman he carries even more weight. I just don't see him supporting JRB, but at this point there is not too much to lose by nominating her or an equivalent and rolling the guns up to the top of the ridge.

[JohnnyZ]

Why is everybody so hell bent on having a woman on the court. I thought we wanted the "Best Qualified" person for the job.

When you get past a certain point it's really just subjective ranking "most qualified", "2nd most qualified" -- there are many highly qualified candidates, a top tier if you will, and it doesn't really matter if you want to play politics with the specific person you pick. Age, sex, race, it's a political pick, everyone understands that, and no one will mind as long as the nominee has excellent qualifications.

[Congressman Billybob]

I happen to agree with you that Professor Thomas Sowell would be an outstanding Justice on the Court. I agree that being a lawyer is NOT required to be a Justice on the Supreme Court. Interestingly, the Court itself has said exactly that, in an opinion on whether a Probate Judge in some state had to be a lawyer.

However, I don't think President Bush is going to consider any non-lawyer right now. And there is a problem with Sowell. He has just turned 75. His wide-reaching brilliance would be valuable to the Court. But the calendar says that he probably wouldn't survive ten years, much less thirty years.

John / Billybob

[JohnnyZ]

Because she was President Bush's pick. That's the first constitutional qualification. Senate confirmation is the second.

Well, Miers WASN'T confirmed, ipso facto she wasn't qualified by your own definition.

[headsonpikes]

Too good to be true, I'm afraid.