LOTT TO BE RULES COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN?

Roll Call (through Drudge)

[RobFromGa]

BOOBY PRIZE: Republicans to offer Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) the chairmanship of the Rules and Administration Committee, ROLL CALL is set to report... MORE

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who was in line to head the Rules panel in the 108th Congress, has agreed to step aside to allow Lott to retain some institutional power...

[TLBSHOW]

Last night on hardball called the conservative agenda they started off with Banning PB Abortion and the rat going against it was laughed at and called a baby killer!

Rats on their way to the stone age!

[mwl1]

Everyone stop overreacting. Rules has NO power in the Senate, only in the House.

The majority leader and his deputies make all the Rules decisions in the Senate.... there is no critical institutional role pertaining to legislative procedure for the Rules Committee in the Senate.

This is a figurehead job.

Santorum was supporting Lott because it was his job as #3 or #4 to do so.

[Dog Gone]

I don't see this as any big deal. It's the crappiest chairmanship in the Senate, and it probably only meets a couple of times each session.

If this was the price to keep Lott in the Senate instead of stepping down entirely, it's a small price to pay.

[TLBSHOW]

Sorry Rob, The trent affair was a disgrace by republicans!

[mwl1]

You are correct. Rules has no comparable stature in the Senate to its counterpart in the House... they are totally unalike.

[RobFromGa]

Thanks for the information on the Rules Committee Chairman responsibilities.

Does this figurehead ever make any decisions that might require vertabrae to carry them out?

[mwl1]

Rarely.

[leadpenny]

Thank you. Do we even know who the previous Rules Chairman was?

[TLBSHOW]

Republicans all, found themselves in varying degrees of difficulty after remarks interpreted by many as racially insensitive at best and racist at worst.


So far, however, none has attracted as much attention or suffered as much as Lott, who bowed to intense pressure from inside and outside his party and gave up his position as incoming Senate majority leader a week ago.


''In a way, I guess the Lott situation might be teasing out all the slow learners,'' says Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta who has written extensively on racial politics in the South.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20021227/ts_usatoday/4734623

[My2Cents]

called a baby killer

Well, at least they got that one right.

[RobFromGa]

Sorry, TLB. We disagree on the Lott situation, I think he should have quit more gracefully. He is an idiot. But, I don't think you are an idiot.

[mwl1]

McConnell had the chairmanship in early 2001 and then it went to Chris Dodd after the RATS stole the Senate.

[RobFromGa]

Dodd is previous Rules Committee chairman. Link

[TLBSHOW]

The fires are stoked, and dissenters are marked for public execution. Consider:


The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, which represents 180 traditional civil rights organizations, is urging President Bush (news - web sites) to toss away a slate of judges he has endorsed for positions on the federal bench simply on the grounds that their records have shown "deep hostility to core civil rights principles." What exactly the Leadership Council has in mind is not at hand, but we know that the conference wants an amendment to the transportation bill that would forbid racial profiling in any state. The federal government is not supposed to dictate to individual states procedures by which they seek to discourage crime. The implied reasoning here is that because more minorities are targeted by racial profiling, therefore the objective of racial profiling is to diminish the civil rights of minorities.

snip:

We will need to watch carefully how the Bush administration comports itself on the University of Michigan question. Will the Justice Department file an amicus brief defending the right course? Or has the Leadership Conference assumed veto power on the question?

William F. Buckley Jr

[RobFromGa]

Members

 

Democrats: Chairman, Chris Dodd, CT Robert C. Byrd Daniel K. Inouye Dianne Feinstein Robert G. Torricelli Charles E. Schumer John B. Breaux Tom Daschle Mark Dayton Richard J. Durbin

Republicans: Ranking Member, Mitch McConnell, KY John W. Warner Jesse Helms Ted Stevens Thad Cochran Rick Santorum Don Nickles Trent Lott Kay Bailey Hutchison

[RobFromGa]

Those are the Members from the last Congress.

Lot's of high powered Senators on that one, including at least one racist, who used to be in the KKK.

[rwfromkansas]

He is the chairman of the committee, not a dictator of the committee. He does have to have agreement among the others.

[Eva]

I actually think that it would be a good spot for Lott. The position allows absolutely no room for imposing policy or opinion, just inforce the rules.

As for Santorum, he was listed along with Patty Murray, in a poll of legislative aides, as #3 in the category, not exactly a rocket scientist. Patty got #1, and this was before her Bin Laden statements, I think.

[Hunble]

I must admit my own personal hatred.

Anyone Senator that did not do his/her patriotic duty during the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton, will be held responsible.

I swore an oath to give my Senator from Minnesota a bloody nose once he became a civilian once again. The position of Senator is honored, and as long as he was in office, he was respected.

However, once he became a civilian just like you and me, I swore to punch him in the nose if I ever saw him in person.

Sadly, Sen. Paul Wellsone was killed in a tragic aircraft accident. Guess my oath was honored in a way that was never intended or desired. I was looking forward to being arrested for assault and battery!

Sen. Trent Lott betrayed the American citizens and I will never forgiven him for those actions.

If you live in Mississippi and punch him in the nose someday, let me know. I would probably sell everything I own to help pay your legal bills.