Onsite Report: Rally to Free President Bush’s Judicial NomineesUpper Senate Park, Washington, DC (Thursday, 20 June 2002)
Posted on 06/21/2002 9:01:16 PM PDT by Skeet
Onsite Report: Rally to Free President Bush’s Judicial Nominees
Upper Senate Park, Washington, DC (Thursday, 20 June 2002)
No Conservatives Need Apply. As the Big Hillbilly Bluegrass Band played in the sweltering noon sun, the leaders of some of America’s largest conservative organizations, as well as over 100 supporters gathered in the Upper Senate Park in an attempt to transfer some heat to Senators Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) for their continued efforts to derail President Bush’s judicial nominees. Sponsored by the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary, this rally marked day 406 since President Bush announced his first judicial nominees. Of those eleven nominees, only three (two of which are registered Democrats) have received full Senate votes.
At approximately 12:15, Radio talk show host and event emcee, Laura Ingraham stepped to the microphone and opened with a brief story of hypocrisy. It appears that when the Republicans controlled the Senate, Senator Leahy was on record as saying that within 60 days every nominee should have a vote. (If this is truly his position) “Why in the last two months have we had no Federal Circuit Court nominees considered by the Judiciary Committee?” asked Ingraham. “Not one has been passed through the committee for a full vote on the Senate floor. The light of honesty and truth has got to shine on this process.”
Ingraham, who has been invited to speak at the First Annual Free Republic Conference, began the event with former Attorney General Edwin Meese who declared that this judiciary crisis is an unprecedented situation in American history and one of the most important causes facing our country today.
“We’ve never had a situation like this where we have had so many judicial nominees held up for such a long period of time. Today, under the current leadership of the Senate and under the leadership of the senate judiciary committee, the conduct would be more appropriate to some banana republic, where individual fiat determines who is to judge or who is receiving an appointment rather than the constitutional method which has been prescribed and which has been followed now for over 200 years.”
Meese affirmed that the main reason behind this judicial crisis is that the current leadership of the Senate and the Judiciary committee are beholding to and being run by a group of leftwing extremists. “These extremists have tried to impose upon the people of these United States their ideas through the legislative process and have been rebuffed, because people don’t want their ideas. And now they are trying to get liberal judges appointed to the bench and if they can’t get liberal judges, no judges appointed to the bench, in order that they can achieve through litigation what they can’t get through legislation by the peoples’ representatives. And that is really at the bottom of what we are talking about today.”
Meese feared that these tactics practiced by the Democrats would ultimately cost us our independent judiciary. Said Meese, “We must end the subservience to leftwing extremist organizations and get back to constitutional governing in all three branches of government.”
As the program continued, Sandy Rios, President of Concerned Women for America recognized that, “The American people, as we know, simply do not support the far left political agenda. And the far left needs activist political judges to impose it. President Bush has pledged to appoint judges who will simply follow the law and leave running the country and defining the culture to ‘We the people.’ The choice is not about how judges will run the country the choice is about whether we the people or they the judges will run the country. Defending our freedom requires fighting for the kind of judges President Bush has been nominating. We call on Senate Republicans to find their courage and tell the American people the truth about this confirmation crisis and fight for the judges who will support our freedoms.”
There was a broad coalition participating in this fight. Rich Tafel, Executive Director of the Log Cabin Republicans, agreed that people should be judged on their merit and that the only reason these judges are being discriminated against is because President Bush nominated them. “Discrimination in the name of civil rights makes no sense,” offered Tafel. Misusing the words “extremist” and “bigot” against good people is going to have a corrosive and detrimental effect on our society for years to come. “Because very good people are not going to want to run for political office; they are not going to want to run and serve as judges. We call upon the Senate Democrats to stop the smear campaign and speak the truth about these judges.”
Ken Connor, President of the Family Research Council stated that, Senators Daschle and Leahy “have shown the will and resolve to continue holding the Constitution hostage for as long as they are able to get away with it. Our job is to make darn sure that they don’t get away with it any longer. As President Reagan once said it’s not always necessary that the congress see that light as long as they feel the heat.” He urged all of us to turn the heat up on the Senate Judiciary committee so “we that we can restore and regain our right of constitutional self government.”
Trueblackman, Government & Political Affairs Director for the African American Republican Leadership Council got the crowd going with his remarks. Acknowledging that these judges are not being considered because they are “outside the mainstream,” TBM wondered when did Senators Daschle, Leahy, Clinton, and Kennedy join the mainstream? They want to talk about racial profiling, well “What about nomination profiling?” That is what is going on inside the Senate today. The message they are sending to nominees like Miguel Estrada is that “you can come here and you can work your way up to the top but if you happen to be prolife or you happen to be conservative, forget it kid. This is nomination and racial profiling at its worse. Maybe John Ashcroft should be sending some agents up here to Capitol Hill.”
Other Released Statements:
James Martin, President, 60 Plus Association wrote, “President George Bush has performed a remarkable job in nominating 100 individuals to serve on these courts. These individuals have received either ‘qualified’ or ‘well-qualified’ ratings from the American Bar Association, the ‘gold standard’ for nominees according to the Democrats.”
“And yet these nominations languish. And why? Because the Democratic leadership in the Senate is applying a litmus test checking with liberal special interest groups for approval and putting these nominees through difficult hurdles. While no one gets 100 per cent of judges confirmed promptly, 88% of Clinton’s judges were confirmed in his first year compared to a miniscule 20% of Bush’s in his first year. This is politics at its worst. It is hurting the American People.”
Robert Fike, Federal Affairs Manager, Americans for Tax Reform submitted, “…one of the reasons we establish governments in the first place is to create and maintain an orderly system for the fair resolution of disputes. But without enough qualified judges to handle the caseload, the system cannot function adequately.”
“The Senate is not satisfying its constitutional responsibility to maintain the nation’s judicial system. Deliberately leaving more than one out of every ten seats on the federal bench unoccupied is dereliction of duty. Doing so as a political maneuver during an election year while masquerading behind ‘principle’ is nothing short of galling. We may very well need a new Senate more than we need new judges.”
Amen to that.
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