Posted on 11/04/2004 9:57:49 AM PST by Syco
Dear Senator Frist,
After a long and contentious fight to retain the White House and expand our majority in both houses of Congress, I am extremely dismayed by comments made by Senator Specter regarding the President's right to choose his own candidates for the nation's judiciary. After several years of stonewalling on the part of Democrats in the Senate Judiciary Committee, it is incredibly distressing to see a member of the Republican party attempting to block excellent and qualified judges from the bench because of their conservative ideology.
I am a partisan. I will continue to work for our party's success because I believe that we embody the principles that are best for the nation. But make no mistake, conservative members of the Republican party will not continue to support the GOP if a very small minority of our Senators refuse to give a fair hearing to judges who agree with the party platform.
The last election should be a wakeup call to party leadership. The single most important issue to voters was "moral values". The party did a masterful job of getting Evangelical and other Conservative voters to the polls - voters who stayed home in 2000 - largely because of the moral issues facing the nation. It would be disastrous for the party and country if these voters felt betrayed and did not return to the polls in 2006 and 2008.
Renegade judges have been legislating from the bench for decades and have recently accelerated a dangerous experiment in social engineering - whether by redefining marriage, tinkering with the Pledge of Allegiance, or ruling against late term abortion restrictions. The American people recognize this judicial tyranny for what it is, and we look to you and other members of the Senate to put a stop to it.
Senator Specter and Democrats in the Senate say that the President should not nominate candidates with a conservative ideology because they are "outside the mainstream". If that is the case, most of the country must be outside of the mainstream. The vast majority of Americans support some limits on abortion, and clearly Tuesday's results in the states voting on Marriage Amendment should prove that this country will not accept gay marriage as a government supported institution.
In light of all of this, I am writing to you to urge you to take action to remove Senator Specter from the Judiciary Committee. The idea that this man, who won a tough primary fight only with the help of the White House, could be the next Chair of the Judiciary Committee is truly frightening. Please take steps to ensure that he does not aid liberals in continuing to block the President's agenda.
I understand that this move could lead to Mr. Specter defecting to the other side. In reality Senator, he made that defection long ago. Please do what is right and help President Bush and the majority of the American people in seating solid judges, without forcing them to pass a liberal litmus test. As our majority leader, we are counting on you.
You need to understand that we're not trying to remove him as a Senator - we just want ensure that he is not appointed as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Especially given his statements about confirming some judges, etc.
I think it just gives the minority party undiserved leverage against the majority.
Senators were meant to have a lot of individual power, that is reflected in their rules. Requiring cloture on matters that the Constitution doesn't require the Senate to give it's advice and consent on is one historic way of "empowering" individual Senators.
I understand what you're saying about building a majority coalition and about past failures to frontally assault Roe v. Wade. But man, you don't seem to get the fact that the rules have changed! We won, they lost. Social conservatives were a ferocious and very visible part of that victory and everybody knows it. Several Democrat Senators from conservative states will HAVE to vote for a reasonable SCOTUS nominee if that nominee is given a straight up or down vote on the Senate floor - especially if that nominee is someone like Miguel Estrada.
The MSM is severely weakened. The DNC is severly weakened. The American people have given a strong endorsement of conservative, traditional values. To put Specter in control of the Judiciary Committee in light of all of that is crazy!
I did not express myself to you well.
I have been following this story all day. It has been posted numerous times.
I had heard that Specters office claims he was mis-quoted in the remarks published and that they were making a transcript of the actual words he said.
I understand the move here is to keep him from a Senate post, not to remove him from Senator.
Perhaps the RINO can be convinced not to go against GWB.
I just don't know how all the furor (at this point in time) can be beneficial, and what do the Senate rules on seinority state?
Can he be refused that Chair?
And if so, what effect on other Senators will that have.
I'm with you, but I don't wish to jump the gun, making us [FR] look foolish.
BTW -- Read my tag line.
How may times do I have to say this? The San Francisco Chronicle interview does not constitute the entirety of everything Specter has said about this or his record on this issue. Maybe the transcript will show that he was slightly misquoted - that does not erase what he has said elsewhere.
And how does it make a conservative internet forum, where posters can post whatever damned fool thing they want, look foolish if they take action based upon statements the Senator has been quoted as saying on several occasions in several different sources? I don't get it. He's been quoted in at least the San Francisco Chronicle from yesterday and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from last month. One FReeper reports hearing the soundbite on Fox News where he made the statement about obstructing conservative (what he calls extremist) judicial nominees.
We're proving to have some affect because now he's had to go to the tape to try to do some damage control.
And, besides all of this, someone who would vote against impeaching Bill Clinton based upon his interpretation of Scottish law should NEVER hold any position on the Judiciary Committee, let alone as its Chairman. His participation in "borking" the Supreme Court confirmation of Judge Robert Bork is another infraction that is reason to keep him out of the chairman slot.
Aside from Frist's position, the chair of the judiciary committee is the MOST important position in the Senate in this next term. It wasn't so important in Bush's first term because there were not any SC justices to be approved. It is almost a given that at least a couple will come up this term and we don't need a self-professed moderate at the head of the judiciary when that happens. We are in control now so lets not piss it away.
And how many times do I have to say ... "If you think you and others should start a blitz against him, have at it."?
fwiw, here is the transcript that generated the AP story:
> November 3, 2004
> Transcript
>
>
> JORDAN: Senator, you didn't talk about the Judiciary
> Committee, it is something you are expected to Chair this January.
> With 3 Supreme Court Justices rumored to retire soon, starting with
> Rehnquist, how do you see this unfolding in the next couple of months
> and what part do you intend to play on it?
>
> SPECTER: You know my approach is cautious with respect to
> the Judiciary Committee. I am in line, Senator Hatch is barred now by
> term limits and Senate Rules so that I am next in line. There has to
> be a vote of the Committee and I have already started to talk to some
> of my fellow committee members. I am respectful of Senate traditions,
> so I am not designating myself Chairman, I will wait for the Senate
> procedures to act in do course. You are right on the substance, the
> Chief Justice is gravely ill. I had known more about that than had
> appeared in the media. When he said he was going to be back on
> Monday, it was known inside that he was not going to be back on
> Monday. The full extent of his full incapacitation is really not
> known, I believe there will be cause for deliberation by the
> President. The Constitution has a clause called advise and consent,
> the advise part is traditionally not paid a whole lot of attention to,
> I wouldn't quite say ignored, but close to that. My hope that the
> Senate will be more involved in expressing our views. We start off
> with the basic fact that the Democrats are have filibustered and
> expect them to filibuster if the nominees are not within the broad
> range of acceptability. I think there is a very broad range of
> Presidential Discretion but there is a range.
>
> ODOM: Is Mr. Bush, he just won the election, even with
> the popular vote as well. If he wants anti-abortion judges up there,
> you are caught in the middle of it what are you going to do? The
> party is going one way and you are saying this.
>
> SPECTER: When you talk about judges who would change the
> right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v Wade, I think that is
> unlikely. And I have said that bluntly during the course of the
> campaign and before. When the Inquirer endorsed me, they quoted my
> statement that Roe v Wade was inviolate. And that 1973 decision,
> which has been in effect now for 33 years, was buttressed by the 1992
> decision, written by three Republican justices-O'Conner, Souter, and
> Kennedy-and nobody can doubt Anthony Kennedy's conservativism or
> pro-life position, but that's the fabric of the country. Nobody can be
> confirmed today who didn't agree with Brown v. Board of Education on
> integration, and I believe that while you traditionally do not ask a
> nominee how they're going to decide a specific case, there's a
> doctorate and a fancy label term, stari decisis, precedent which I
> think protects that issue. That is my view, now, before, and always.
>
>
> ODOM: You are saying the President should not bother
> to send somebody up there like that.
>
> SPECTER: Can't hear you
>
> ODOM: You are saying the President should not bother
> or make the move to send somebody up there who is clearly
> anti-abortion.
>
> SPECTER: I don't want to prejudge what the President is
> going to do. But the President is well aware of what happened when a
> number of his nominees were sent up, were filibustered, and the
> President has said he is not going to impose a litmus test, he faced
> that issue squarely in the third debate and I would not expect the
> President, I would expect the President to be mindful of the
> considerations that I mentioned.
>
> JORDAN: However, Senator the President has President has sent
> up, as you know, a number of very very conservative judges socially,
> you have made a point in this campaign of saying that you have
> supported all of those ______ at least I the last two years, how is
> this going to square with what you are saying today about wanting the
> Republican party to be big tent and moderate.
>
> SPECTER: I have been very careful in what I have said and
> what I have done. The nominees whom I supported in Committee, I had
> reservations on. As for judge Pryor, there had been an issue as to
> whether as Attorney General he had raised money, I said in voting him
> out of committee, that he did not have my vote on the floor until I
> satisfied myself about collateral matters. The woman judge out of
> California, who had dismissed a case on invasion of privacy where the
> doctor had permitted an insurance adjuster to watch a mammogram, I had
> a reservation on it, so I wanted to talk to her to see if that was
> aberrational or whether that really reflected her judgment on each and
> every one of those cases. This may be more detail than you want, but
> there was one judge for a district judgeship, Judge Holmes, in
> Arkansas, who was first in his class at the University of Arkansas,
> had a PhD from Duke, had a master's degree, was touted by both
> Democratic Arkansas Senators, was supported by 2 pro-choice women,
> Senator Landrieu and Senator Lincoln, highly regarded in the Arkansas
> editorial pages, and for a district court judgeship I thought. He had
> made two statements, and they were, one was in a religious context
> that a wife should be subservient to a husband, that was in a
> religious context. Then he made a statement doubting the potential
> for impregnation from rape, and made an absurd statement that it would
> be as rare as snow in Florida in July. That was about a 20 year-old
> statement and I brought him in and sat down, had a long talk with him
> and concluded that they were not disqualifiers. He was the only judge
> whom I voted to confirm on the floor vote where any question has been
> raised and I think that was the right decision for a district court
> judgeship, not to make that a disqualifier. There are few if any
> whose record if you go back over 30 or 40 years, and not find some
> dumb thing, I don't want you to take a to close a look at my 40 year
> record.
>
> HIGHSMITH: Talk to us a little bit beyond judgeships, you
> said again today and last night that your goal now is to moderate the
> party, bring it to the center.
>
> SPECTER: Correct
>
> [BREAK-Bringing the Country Together Question]
>
> [BREAK-Stem Cell Question]
>
> MACINTOSH: What are the characteristics that you are
> looking for in any candidate for the high court who might come your
> way in the next year or two?
>
> SPECTER: Well I would like to see a select someone in the
> mold of Holmes, Brandeis, Cardozo, or Marshall. With all due respect
> to the U.S. Supreme Court, we don't have one. And I haven't minced
> any words about that during the confirmation process.
>
> MACINTOSH: Meaning?
>
> SPECTER: Where I have questioned them all very closely.
> I had an argument before the Supreme Court of the United States on
> trying to keep the Navy base, and you should heard what the eight of
> them had to say to me. They were almost as tough as this gang here
> this morning.
>
> ODOM: Senator, the judges you mentioned are obviously
> renown. Are you saying that there are no greatness on there, is that
> what you're driving at?
>
> SPECTER: Yes. Can you take yes for an answer Vernon?
> I'm saying that we don't have anybody of the stature of Oliver Wendell
> Holmes, or Willy Brandeis, or Cardozo, or Marshall. That's what I'm
> saying. I'm saying that we have a court which they're graduates from
> the Court of Appeals from the District of Columbia basically, some
> other Circuit Courts of Appeals. I think that we could use, and I am
> repeating myself again, a Holmes or a Brandeis.
>
> ODOM: Would you resign to take the appointment?
> You're the only person I can think of?
>
> SPECTER: I can think of quite a few other people.
>
> JORDAN: Like who?
>
> SPECTER: I think there's some possibility, just a slight
> possibility, I may not be offered the appointment.
>
> JORDAN: Senator, who do you think would be a good candidate?
>
> SPECTER: For the Supreme Court?
>
> JORDAN: Yes.
>
> SPECTER: I have some ideas but I'm going to withhold my
> comments. If, as, and when the President asks that question, Lara,
> I'll have some specific information for him. In the alternative, if
> you become President, I'll have it for you.
>
> [BREAK-Election 2010 question]
>
> [BREAK-Iraq questions]
>
> Jordan: Do you expect to continue supporting all of
> President Bush's judicial nominees?
>
> AS: I am hopeful that I'll be able to do that. That
> obviously depends upon the President's judicial nominees. I'm hopeful
> that I can support them.
>
> [BREAK-Election question]
>
> [End Press Conference]
I understand you're tactic I think. Snooker them into thinking you're on their side. I just don't think that such things will ever work. Perhaps I've missed it.
I understand full well that all Bush voters, even all Republicans aren't on our side. I have a lot of friends who are Republicans only for economic issues. For me, that is secondary. You say that the MSM is trolling for a win by trying to build the case that Conservatives want to repeal Roe v. Wade. Gee, d'ya think? How'd they crack our code? Anyone who's drawn breath in the last thirty years knows that.
If they're trying to drive a wedge between the moderates and the conservatives in the party, that won't work either. There's really no alternative party today for thinking people since the extreme left has completely hijacked the DNC.
I just don't think that this is an MSM ploy. I actually believe that Specter said this. God knows he's said similar things in the past. The guy is as RINO as they come.
Again, for me the issue goes WAY beyond abortion. If you put a judge on the bench who is rabidly pro-abortion, he is more likely to also believe in other liberal causes like gay marriage, et al.
If you wait until your coalition is perfect, you will never act. This is the best chance that we've had since the 1920's to truly reclaim all three branches of the government. Giving the Judicial Committee to Specter would really squander that opportunity.
Ding ding ding we have a winner ...
You are being too modest in your goals. Now is the time to increase our majority, not spend all our capital wastefully. Remember the dems sat atop the levers of power for 50 years to get us where we are today.
Gun control is my litmus test. How a person feels about a citizen owning a gun is how they feel about the US Constitution.
snooker is my name. Winning is the game. :-}
This wedge business is exactly why I don't think that we should be making abortion THE issue. The moderates in the party (as well as independent moderates) may not share our passion about the wrong-headedness about Roe v. Wade, but they most of them agree strongly about Marriage, The Pledge, Free Speech, etc. (Sadly, too many moderates don't give a *&%# about the Second Ammendment, including Mr. Specter.)
If we as a party bring these other issues to the fore, something that I believe the President and his advisors have done very effectively, I believe that we can win over MORE hearts and minds. Nevertheless, it doesn't change the fact that Specter is the wrong man for the job of Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Make his removal about all of those other issues and downplay the abortion angle if you must, but don't let him rise to the role of chairman!
I did. It says Bush shouldn't put forward nominees who outside a "range" of acceptability to Democrats.
If you write a snail mail letter it has more impact than email...We The People deserve better than the Majority party has given us in letting the Dem's manipulate up or down votes and that filibuster nonsense...demand action..
I am calling in as well!!
MINE
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