How Lindsey Graham Is Likely To Save Sonia Sotomayor
The Senate Judiciary Committee has a rule: "Bringing a Matter to a Vote: The Chairman shall entertain a non-debatable motion to bring a matter before the Committee to a vote. If there is objection to bring the matter to a vote without further debate, a roll call vote of the Committee shall be taken, and debate shall be terminated if the motion to bring the matter to a vote without further debate passes with ten votes in the affirmative, one of which must be cast by the minority."
In other words, to get the nomination of Sotomayor out of committee, at least one Republican will have to vote to bring her nomination to the floor of the Senate. (That Senator could still vote no on confirmation in the full Senate.)
For a long time, the expectation was that the crossover vote would come from Arlen Specter, who was once R-Pa. but is now D-Opportunist. With him gone, Sotomayor will need a yes vote from one of the other Republicans on the committee: Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, Jon Kyl of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John Cornyn of Texas and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
The speculation is that Graham will be the crossover. His opening statement certainly gave a few hints: "We lost. President Obama won. And that ought to matter. It does to me... I don't know how I'll vote, but...elections matter." He also predicted she would be confirmed barring a "meltdown." On the other hand, he said in regards to Sotomayor's "wise Latina" comment, "If I had said anything remotely like that my career would be over."
“We lost. President Obama won. And that ought to matter. It does to me...”
What the hell does that have to do with the thought process involved in determining whether someone is qualified to be a SC justice? Using that logic, anyone that Obama nominates should be approved because he won. Why even nominate a judge? Obama should just nominate another big donor to his campaign, like he is doing with all these czar positions, and they would be approved.
How do people like Graham keep getting re-elected? He is pathetic!