Posted on 11/08/2005 12:57:10 AM PST by RWR8189
The recent announcement by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter that confirmation hearings on Judge Samuel Alito have been postponed until January was only the latest in a series of painful examples of what happens when Senate Republicans wimp out.
Senator Specter did not wimp out. The Senate Republican "leadership" wimped out when they made him chairman of the Judiciary Committee after he had fired a shot across the bow of his own President, right after the election, publicly warning President Bush not to nominate anyone to the Supreme Court who would stir up controversy in the Senate.
That was the time to replace Senator Specter with a chairman who would support, or at least not sabotage, the President's attempt to put the kind of people on the courts that he had pledged to appoint during the election campaign. Instead, the Senate "leadership" accepted Senator Specter's assurances that he would cooperate.
Well, now he is cooperating -- with the Democrats on his committee.
The delay in Judge Alito's confirmation hearings gives the Senate Democrats and all the liberal-left interest groups time to orchestrate a fear and smear campaign and raise the money to advertise those fears and smears, both directly and by organized protests that will get much free publicity in the liberal media.
There is another aspect to this. Liberal Senators have every incentive to drag out the confirmation process, regardless of how the final vote turns out, because the longer they stall the longer Sandra Day O'Connor remains on the Supreme Court. She is their kind of judge, one who makes policy instead of applying the law.
There was a time when the nomination of someone with Judge Alito's high qualifications to be on the Supreme Court would be confirmed by the Senate with little discussion and the confirmation reported with little comment in the media. But that was in earlier times, when common decency could be taken for granted.
Today, we can look for a Roman circus, complete with Christians being thrown to the lions. Worse yet, the idea will be reinforced that a judge's "views" on issues of the day are important and need to be questioned at interminable length.
Actually, the only view that really matters is a judge's view of the role of a judge. If a judge sees his role as applying laws passed by other people, then his own personal views on issues are irrelevant.
Demands for "more information" have also become part of this Roman circus, even when the Senators themselves know that the information they are asking for cannot be released.
If a Senator thinks the information available on any nominee is inadequate, then all that Senator has to do is vote not to confirm. The power to vote yes or no does not include obstructing other Senators from voting or dragging out the confirmation hearings into a media spectacle and a public humiliation.
Justice Clarence Thomas said it best during his confirmation hearings: "Confirm me if you want, don't confirm me if you are so led, but let this process end."
It needs to end for everybody -- not just for this nominee or the next nominee but for the good of the country, so that the best qualified people are willing to go through the nomination process, without fear that the reputation of a lifetime will not be dragged through the mud.
Senator Orrin Hatch has aptly said that the coming battle over the nomination of Judge Alito will be "Armageddon." It will be Armageddon for the Republican party.
If the Republicans are not willing to fight for the things that people elected them to do, then some of the people who elected them may not turn out to vote for them at the next election.
People who have for years not only voted for the Republicans, but donated their time and money to the Republican party, who have volunteered to stuff envelopes, man the phones and walk the precincts to get out the vote on cold election nights, deserve something better than Senators who wimp out at crunch time.
If the fate of the legal system in this country is not enough incentive for Senate Republicans to show some backbone, maybe concern for their own re-election will be.
Copyright 2005 Creators Syndicate
(Editor's note: What follow is a statement issued by Sen. Arlen Specter on Thursday, Nov. 18 [2004]. Specter's potential chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary committee is strongly opposed by conservatives, and he has spent the past week seeking the support of his Republican colleagues.)
I have not and would not use a litmus test to deny confirmation to pro-life nominees.I have voted to confirm Chief Justice Rehnquist after he voted against Roe v. Wade. Similarly, I have voted to confirm pro-life nominees Justice Scalia, Justice O'Connor, Justice Kennedy. And I led the successful fight to confirm Justice Thomas, which almost cost me my Senate seat in 1992.
I have assured the president that I would give his nominees quick committee hearings and early committee votes so floor action could be promptly scheduled.
I have voted for all of President Bush's judicial nominees in committee and on the floor. And I have no reason to believe that I'll be unable to support any individual President Bush finds worthy of nomination.
I believe I can help the president get his nominees approved, just as I did on confirmation of two controversial Pennsylvania circuit court nominees, when other similarly situated circuit nominees were being filibustered.
I have already registered my opposition to the Democrats' filibusters with 17 floor statements and will use my best efforts to stop any future filibusters.
It is my hope and expectation that we can avoid future filibusters and judicial gridlock with a 55-to-45 Republican majority and election results demonstrating voter dissatisfaction with Democratic filibusters.
If a rule change is necessary to avoid filibusters, there are relevant recent precedents to secure rule changes with 51 votes.
I intend to consult with my colleagues on the committee's legislative agenda, including tort reform, and will have balanced hearings with all viewpoints represented.
I have long objected to the tactic used in bottling up civil rights legislation in the Judiciary Committee when it should have gone to the floor for an up-or-down vote. Accordingly, I would not support committee action to bottle up legislation or a constitutional amendment, even one which I personally opposed, reserving my own position for the floor.
While Chirac fiddles, the enemy within takes a nation.
I'm not pleased with Specter, but we do have a disintergrating country across the Atlantic to point at and say, "See .... this is what happens when enemies are allowed to co-exist with friendlies."
An old Sunday School lesson seems to be apropos here ...
When you put a dirty kid in the same room with a clean kid and allow them to play together, will the clean rub off of the clean kid and make the dirty kid clean, or will the dirt rub off of the dirty kid and make the clean kid dirty?
People who have for years not only voted for the Republicans, but donated their time and money to the Republican party, who have volunteered to stuff envelopes, man the phones and walk the precincts to get out the vote on cold election nights, deserve something better than Senators who wimp out at crunch time.
If the fate of the legal system in this country is not enough incentive for Senate Republicans to show some backbone, maybe concern for their own re-election will be.
"If the Republicans are not willing to fight for the things that people elected them to do, then some of the people who elected them may not turn out to vote for them at the next election."
"Nothing More!
Still in committee, nominated (this go around) in February 2005.
AP Report Reid wants to filibuster Haynes & Kavanaugh - May 28, 2005
Fox News Report Reid will filibuster Saad & Myers - May 29, 2005
Boyle was nominated to 4th Cir. in 1991 too, by GHWB
It is OBVIOUS that the GOP leadership is unwilling to confront the DEM abuse of cloture in order to deny up or down votes to the President's nominations. It was stunningly obvious when viewing Frist's reaction to the failed reconsideration of the cloture vote on Bolton. Not ONE judicial nomination has advanced since the May 26 original cloture failure. Frist talked tough on that day.
On June 20, the motion to reconsider passed via unanimous consent.Mr. FRIST. Madam President, needless to say, I am very disappointed with where we sit today. We have had an interesting week, a very challenging week, starting the week on one clear direction and then sidetracked a little bit to what I thought was not an unreasonable feeling in this body that we were going to be working together and that we were going to address the important issues to America.
John Bolton, the very first issue to which we turned, we got what to me looks like a filibuster. It certainly sounds like a filibuster, looking at the vote today, it quacks like a filibuster, and I am afraid, shortly after we thought we had things working together in this body again, we have another filibuster, this time on another nomination--not a judicial nomination but another nomination--the nomination of John Bolton.
It does disappoint me. We had an opportunity to finish and complete this week with a very good spirit. We are going to come back to this issue. As has been said by Senator Biden, as I have said, we are going to revisit it, but I think what America has just seen is an engagement of another period of obstruction by the other side of the aisle, and it looks like we have, once again, another filibuster.
109th Congress - Page S5998 - May 26, 2005
Then the cloture motion failed 54-38.
Following the affirmation of rejection of cloture, Frist said:
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate return to legislative session.Without objection and with no further comment, that is what the Senate did.
Everyone should email this cogent Sowell piece to Sen. Frist's office. I have. It will remind him of what conservatives have put up with under his weak leadership of the Senate.
Will anything happen to Specter for this? Doesn't the Republican leadership have any carrots or sticks?
I did read somewhere that if Specter actively opposed a nominee, he would be removed from the chairmanship -- which may not be a good thing if he were still on the committee, to soothe his resentment with negative votes.
This delay is outrageous, though. O'Connor may have meant well, but she certainly did the administration no favor by offering to stay.
He's careful to not "actively" anything. His opposition is manifested in passivity. Similarly, Frist is passive about bring the nominations ALREADY OUT OF COMMITTEE up for floor debate and vote. Judge Myers nomination was voted out of committee in March, Boyle in June, and still no vote on either one of them.
The GOP is scared of the Democrats, pure and simple. I think that the Miers nomination was further evidence of avoiding the DEM's willingness to employ cloture abuse to obtain their objectives.
Daily
She did not mean well. It was a deliberate power play to try to affect the choice of her replacement. She knew exactly what she was doing.
You may be right.
God how I hate being a Pennsylvanian with Specter as my Senator...he is such a disgrace.
Of course, the PRESIDENT has only himself to blame for helping this pathetic excuse of a man get reelected.
I can appreciate your sentiments.
I am embarrassed because I was born and raised in PA. I have not lived or registered to vote there since 1978, but it still pains me to see the state (especially when they had the chance to replace him) continue to send this imbecile pretending to be something honorable in the Senate.
Sowell is right. The Republican Leadership screwed themselves to the wall with this foolish man. Shot themselves in the foot. Spilled mustard on their pants. Wrecked the car in the ditch. Fell off the ladder.
Anyone have any more analogies for this pathetic excuse for a Republican Senator?
"Of course, the PRESIDENT has only himself to blame for helping this pathetic excuse of a man get reelected."
True. Specter is, predictably, pulling a Specter.
The PRESIDENT also has only himself to blame for first trying to sneak through that empty skirt quota queen and quota pick Harriet. If Bush had gone on merit out of the box, Alito would be confirmed by Thanksgiving and Specter would not be in a position to be pulling a Specter now.
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