SD freepers need to turn the heat up on Tim Johnson, who was making filibuster noises yesterday to toe the party line.
Turn the heat up on Timmy.
Tell him he doesn't want to go the way of Tommy.
Lieberman said Roberts was "a mainstream nominee. But because of the focus on the balance on the court and Justice O'Connor being a mainstream conservative, if the next nominee is not a mainstream conservative, then a filibuster is definitely possible."Notice how "extraordinary circumstances" is morphing into "mainstream conservative."Lieberman was one of 14 Democratic and Republican senators who signed a May 23 accord in which they pledged to not support a filibuster of a judicial nominee unless there were "extraordinary circumstances" which made it impossible to approve the nominee. ...
Another Democrat, Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., said Wednesday that he would vote for Roberts but intended that vote "to be a signal to the president that I'm prepared to cast votes for Republican nominees if they are in the jurisprudential mainstream. There is no need for him to have to go to an extreme candidate." ...
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., one of the seven Democrats who signed the May 23 no-filibuster pledge, noted Wednesday, "I voted against Priscilla Owen (as a judge on the appeals court for the Fifth Circuit). I felt and still believe that she was a judicial activist. Having said that, I don't know that it (an Owen nomination to the high court) triggers a filibuster, but what I can say is she would be a very controversial nominee."
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9428796/
But some Democrats were contemplating just such a move as the 55-year-old Alito began courting senators on the second day of his Supreme Court candidacy. Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota refused to rule out supporting a filibuster."I would leave all those options on the table," he said.
Johnson said he hasn't made up his mind on Alito after discussing the right to privacy and other constitutional issues with him Tuesday. "Not surprisingly, it's hard to draw hard and fast conclusions on how he will vote," Johnson said. "There is no question he is a conservative."
Lieberman's logic is, "If not mainstream conservative, then extraordinary circumstances."
But notice Ben Nelson of Nebraska. He would not hold that Owen (previously held up by cloture abuse), while even being considered a "judicial activist" in his mind, constitutes crossing the line into "extraordinary circumstances."
I am trying to... but his server is probably very 'busy' :)
Keep up Freepers