"I’m hopeful the Senate will honor the results of the last election and give this well-qualified nominee a full and vigorous hearing followed by a fair up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. "
Sort of like the fair up and down vote Miers got...
This more important than one person's feelings. Who gets seated on the court will change the face of America for decades to come.
Cry Me a River, Hugh
Posted by: Dale Franks on Thursday, October 27, 2005As far as the up-or-down vote thing goes, one notes that the problem conservatives had with the up-or-down vote requirement was that the Democrats were denying Senate votes on judicial nominees who had already been vetted, and reported out of the Judiciary Committee. At no point in time has the issue been that every presidential nominee, no matter how unqualified, must be accepted without dissent from the moment of nomination. Nor has the issue ever been that the president's supporters must remain silent to allow any nominee, regardless of qualifications, to complete the nomination process. The whole point of the argument was that qualified nominees, whose nominations were before the Senate, were refused a vote by senators of the opposing party. Conflating that with pundits who have nothing whatsoever to do with the nomination of confirmation process, and who merely express their opinions about the quality of a nominee, is either intentionally intellectually dishonest, or a sign of an sad inability to reason properly.
Miers did not receive that considerations because "conservative" zealots hounded her into withdrawal.
She didn't stick around long enough to get an up or down vote. That only comes after the judiciary committee hearings and vote to pass the nomination to the full senate and then the full senate hearings. Had she gone through the two sets of hearings, she would have almost certainly gotten a vote on the senate floor.
There is a rather long list of appointees who never got an up or down vote because they withdrew their names prior to that point. You might remember Zoe Baird and Lani Guineer (clinton's first two choices for AG before hillary picked Janet Reno) and Linda Chavez (GWB's first choice for AG) as similar examples. This happens all the time and there is nothing wrong with that.
On the other hand, it is not acceptable for the minority to use the filibuster to obstruct the up or down vote to a judicial nominee that has sufficient support to be confirmed. The dems complained when the republicans prevented some of clinton's nominees from even getting out of committee. (This means that the nominee was unable to get a majority vote on the committee, so there was certainly no assurance the nominee would have been approved by the full senate, so for the dems to now use the filibuster to block nominees that have passed through the committee and would easily be confirmed by a bipartisan vote of the full senate is disingenuous at best.)