BREAKING: Senate votes FOR Cloture on Cass Sunstein (63 votes, he will be confirmed)

CSPAN2 ^ | 09-09-09 | CSPAN2

[bustinchops]

Yeah, he’s more worried about his reputation than he is what draconian monstrosities he visits on his constituents and the rest of his fellow Americans.

[Arizona Carolyn]

I saw the full list after I posted that... very surprised, hope Utah hold him accountable for his recent voting pattern.

[Arizona Carolyn]

You got the twister sisters for senators, maybe you can work to change that.

[SunkenCiv]

“Nudging” America to Give Up Meat
ConsumerFreedom.com | September 3, 2009
Posted on 09/05/2009 3:47:23 PM PDT by Still Thinking
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2333066/posts

[bustinchops]

Yes, he is. For that reason and others, he’s an embarrassment.

I wish Kasich would run against him, but I think he’s going to run for governor.

[PhiKapMom]

I understand the importance very well but I also pointed out that there are some on both sides of the aisles that do not believe that a filibuster should be used on Presidential appointees. In fact, it wasn’t originally used on appointees at all.

Here is the rationale by a Constitutional scholar who talks the Constitution and how filibuster works on bills by the Senators. But here is his take on filibustering nominees:

There is no rationale for a filibuster, however, when the Senate is acting under Article 2 in advising and consenting to presidential nominations. As Crockett points out, here the president is “the originator and prime mover. If he wants to make the process more burdensome, perhaps through lengthy interviews or extraordinary background checks, he can.’ The Senate’s role is to accept or reject the president’s nominees, just as the president has a responsibility to accept or reject a bill approved by both houses of Congress. There he does not have the option of delay. Nor should Congress have the option of delay in what is fundamentally an executive function of filling the nonelected positions in the federal government. In other words—to quote Crockett once more—’it is inappropriate for the Senate to employ a delaying tactic normally used in internal business—the construction of legislation—in a nonlegislative procedure that originates in a coequal branch of government.’

[boxlunch]

Ok, so basically what has happened is that Cornyn has basically “gotten out of the way” so that the confirmation can even be put on the schedule to come up for a vote. He is not actually voting to confirm the guy, just to allow the vote to be scheduled to happen.

So I guess what everyone is saying by “straight up or down vote”, is that it was agreed not to delay the vote by parlamentary procedures, but just get on with the voting?

[NewHampshireDuo]

Tryin’

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

The problem is this: Snowe and Collins are NOT weak in Maine. Every time they run for re-election, the democrats run someone to the left of Teddy Kennedy! In comparison, Snowe and Collins look like conservatives, which they are not. Snowe won re-election in 2006 with 71% of the vote, running against an unknown anti-war moonbat.

Southern Maine.....aka “North Massachusetts,” is the most heavily populated portion of the state, many liberals reside there, many transplants from Massachusetts, many liberal-leaning voters.

Northern Maine....more conservative, but a great deal of poverty, an aging population, pro-Second Amendment, but many citizens who want big government programs because of a lack of jobs and many pockets of poverty.

Maine’s two House members are democrats. The governor is one as well, and the state Senate and legislature are controlled by the dems. There are some good conservatives in state government here, but they are in the minority. A friend of mine ran for the state Senate here last November.....he’s a conservative Republican....but he lost.

I will never vote for either Collins or Snowe in future elections....I’ll be doing a write-in vote.

[bustinchops]

Nope. 7 pubs.

[SkyPilot]

Please don’t bring religious wars into this.

Bovine Scatology.

By that twisted logic, we could never have brought up this guy.

As for Hatch, what was untruthful about what I said? He does believe he will be a "god" someday on his own planet. It is part of his belief.

Tell me I am wrong, and why. Facts please. Don't just repeat that it isn't "FR friendly", whatever that means.

[Tzimisce]

From Wikipedia:

Legal philosophy

Sunstein is a proponent of judicial minimalism, arguing that judges should focus primarily on deciding the case at hand, and avoid making sweeping changes to the law or decisions that have broad-reaching effects. He is generally thought to be liberal despite publicly supporting some of George W. Bush's judicial nominees, including Michael W. McConnell and John G. Roberts. Much of his work also brings behavioral economics to bear on law, suggesting that the "rational actor" model will sometimes produce an inadequate understanding of how people will respond to legal intervention.

In recent years Sunstein has collaborated with academics who have training in behavioral economics, most notably Daniel Kahneman, Richard Thaler, and Christine M. Jolls, to show how the theoretical assumptions of law and economics should be modified by new empirical findings about how people actually behave.

Sunstein (along with his coauthor Richard Thaler) has elaborated the theory of libertarian paternalism. In arguing for this theory, he counsels thinkers/academics/politicians to embrace the findings of behavioral economics as applied to law, maintaining freedom of choice while also steering people's decisions in directions that will make their lives go better. With Thaler, he coined the term "choice architect."

First Amendment

In his book Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech Sunstein says there is a need to reformulate First Amendment law. He thinks that the current formulation, based on Justice Holmes' conception of free speech as a marketplace “disserves the aspirations of those who wrote America’s founding document.”[12] The purpose of this reformulation would be to “reinvigorate processes of democratic deliberation, by ensuring greater attention to public issues and greater diversity of views.”[13] He is concerned by the present “situation in which like-minded people speak or listen mostly to one another,”[14] and thinks that in “light of astonishing economic and technological changes, we must doubt whether, as interpreted, the constitutional guarantee of free speech is adequately serving democratic goals.”[15] He proposes a “New Deal for speech [that] would draw on Justice Brandeis' insistence on the role of free speech in promoting political deliberation and citizenship.”[13]

Animal rights

Sunstein has also written often in favor of animal rights. “Every reasonable person believes in animal rights,” he says.[16] He also says that human “willingness to subject animals to unjustified suffering will be seen … as a form of unconscionable barbarity… morally akin to slavery and the mass extermination of human beings,”[17] and that we might "conclude that certain practices cannot be defended and should not be allowed to continue, if, in practice, mere regulation will inevitably be insufficient—and if, in practice, mere regulation will ensure that the level of animal suffering will remain very high."[16] Specifically he thinks that, “we ought to ban hunting.”[18] He also thinks that “we could even grant animals a right to bring suit”[19] and that it is possible that “that before long, Congress will grant standing to animals to protect their own rights and interests.”[20] This all stems from his claim that "animals, species as such, and perhaps even natural objects warrant respect for their own sake, and quite apart from their interactions with human beings."[21]

Taxation

Sunstein has argued that “we should celebrate tax day.”[22] He appears to claim that the very concepts of property and society are based on government and taxes:

In what sense is the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully ‘ours’? Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts? Do we save it without the support of bank regulators? Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?... Without taxes there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public fisc. … There is no liberty without dependency.[22]

Sunstein goes on to say:

If government could not intervene effectively, none of the individual rights to which Americans have become accustomed could be reliably protected. [...] This is why the overused distinction between "negative" and "positive" rights makes little sense. Rights to private property, freedom of speech, immunity from police abuse, contractual liberty, free exercise of religion--just as much as rights to Social Security, Medicare and food stamps--are taxpayer-funded and government-managed social services designed to improve collective and individual well-being.

[Cboldt]

-- Ok, so basically what has happened is that Cornyn has basically “gotten out of the way” so that the confirmation can even be put on the schedule to come up for a vote. --

He couldn't be much :in the way", beyond objecting to voting, and then casting a NAY vote for cloture - which is how he voted on that. No senator has the power to maintain a perpetual block over the wishes of a determined 60.

-- So I guess what everyone is saying by “straight up or down vote”, is that it was agreed not to delay the vote by parlamentary procedures, but just get on with the voting? --

Technically, 63 senators said "lets get on with the vote," and the NAY votes said "not so fast, we aren't ready to vote yet." 60 being ready to vote forces the body to take the vote.

[bustinchops]

No, we were UNLUCKY that Graham and McCain were NOT part of the 7. The fact that they weren’t means that we have SEVEN more morons in ADDITION to Graham and McCain!!

[Cboldt]

-- John McKernan? Maine's ex-Governor and a Republican? How is he going to take on Olynpia Snowe? --

Heh. Also of the Republican Main Street Partnership.

Anyway, not that Maine is void of rock-solid conservatives, just that the GOP apparatus here resembles, as a matter of principle, a wing of the DEM party. They LIKE big government, because they ARE big government.

[hocndoc]

Don’t you think it’s one thing to vote for a fence and another to fund it? What was the context, what *else* did the Senator say? I can’t find the article, do you have a link? I believe that you don’t understand what you quoted.

However, this Dallas Morning News article
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/national/stories/050809dnnatborderfence.4053ed2.html
refutes the idea that Senator Cornyn is against funding the fence (or that the fence isn’t being built, since 301 miles of 370 planned miles are completed).

In addition, here http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podshows/2296782, he says that the fence is vital to national security, even though some towns might have to give up property:

Look up the votes on the funding - it’s not as simple as picking one news source on a portion of a single statement about one aspect of border security. Even Numbersusa, a single issue website that does focus solely on immigration issues, gives him a B+

Here’s some info on the bills

http://www.votesmart.org/issue_keyvote_detail.php?cs_id=14540&can_id=9490
http://www.votesmart.org/issue_keyvote_detail.php?cs_id=15967&can_id=15375

[mkm1001]

Go here to see how these jerks voted.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00273

[mkm1001]

At least you got through to his Cornyn’s office. I tried 5 times and got pushed into some stupid phone loop where they were asking for his location number or extension or something like that which of course, wasn’t available on his website. I’m from Texas...Cornyn better publish that letter.

[buccaneer81]

Nope. 7 pubs.

You're right. I missed Bennett.

[bustinchops]

No, what you suggest is ambiguous. It sounds as though one vote covered two items of business:

“They voted not to filibuster, but ALSO not to confirm him.”

The vote not to filibuster did not include a vote to confirm or not confirm. It’s a separate vote, as you know, but your sentence conflates the two vote subjects.

“They voted to not filibuster the nomination, which means they can now vote to confirm or not confirm him.”