Posted on 02/13/2003 11:51:59 AM PST by kattracks
Last night, Sen. Orrin Hatch, with over a quarter-century experience on the Senate Judiciary Committee, ripped into the Democrats for filibustering to block a vote on President Bush's judicial nominee to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in D.C., Miguel Estrada.
First, Hatch fired this salvo at Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who accused President Bush of acting like a child on a playground: "I have been listening to this day after day after day. It is clear this is a game. It is a bad game. If they don't like the answers Mr. Estrada has given, vote against him. That is the remedy here. Don't filibuster. Vote against him. Talk against him, like we have had plenty of. Then you have an absolute right to vote against him if you want to."
He also said that blocking Estrada's nomination smacked of racism. Hatch snapped, "It is hypocritical. It is wrong. It is unfair. It is establishing a precedent that could hurt this country immeasurably. ... To do it against the first Hispanic nominated to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is particularly reprehensible, especially since he has every qualification a person needs to fulfill this responsibility. How far do we go with these ridiculous arguments, these unfair arguments, these discriminatory and prejudicial arguments, against a person who has every qualification to be on this court?"
Where the Democratic petition to the solicitor general is concerned, the senator from Utah accused the Democrats of stalling the nomination with frivolous paperwork. (The Democrats were arguing that Estrada had not answered their questions at the Democrat-controlled hearing, so they now need his confidential papers from his time at the solicitor general's office to find out what his opinions are on various subjects.)
Hatch remarked caustically: "Some of the arguments we have had around here are ridiculous. ... I have seen some unfair things here from time to time ... but I have never seen anything more unfair than what is happening here, with senators hiding behind this, I think, phony request for documents. They know they should not have a right to ... documents of recommendations of employees in the solicitor general's office concerning appeals ... and briefs. This is one of the phoniest excuses I have ever heard. Keep in mind, four of their former solicitors general, Democrat solicitors general, are on Miguel Estrada's side. And three of them reviewed every one of those documents. That is not good enough for them??
Hatch ripped the request for Estrada's papers further, accusing the Democrats of having prejudicial double standards: "This is one of the worst arguments I have ever heard on the floor of the Senate. And it is all done for political purposes," he said, because Estrada is a Republican, "which is very tough for them [the Democrats] to take."
He added, "There is nothing more than prejudice going on here; nothing more than unfairness going on here; nothing more than a double standard going on here; nothing more than trying to trip up the president of the United States and make his life even more miserable than it is every day with North Korea, with Iraq, with all the other problems we have in this world."
He did not stop there: "What gets me is we are in the middle of a filibuster of a federal judge, when the Constitution says we should give advice and consent, not advice and obstruction, not advice and a filibuster, not advice and unfairness.
"I have to admit there were some on our side who treated President Clinton in a shabby fashion. [But] I will tell you one thing: We never, ever filibustered a Clinton nominee, not once."
Hatch even pleaded with his compatriots on the other side of the aisle: "I have to say I care a great deal for all of my colleagues in this body. These are 100 of the greatest people on Earth. I care for my colleagues on the Democratic side. But where are they? Why aren't they telling us why? Why don't they give us a reason that is a good reason for being against Miguel Estrada, with all of the qualifications he has? Why couldn't they treat us the way they wanted us to treat their circuit court nominees, which I made sure we treated right? Why can't they be decent to this Hispanic nominee, the first ever nominated to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, one of the most important courts?"
The Judiciary Committee chairman then floated these questions, which are the subject of many talk shows around the country: "Why is it that senators from the Democrat side get on the floor and act as if, because a person is conservative, that person is not going to do what is right under the law; that person is not going to make sure the law is fulfilled; that person is not going to make sure the principle of stare decisis or prior precedent is followed? Why is it they think only liberal ideas are any good?"
Indeed, why?
In summation, he had this to say to his colleagues: "I have been on the Judiciary Committee ... 27 years now. There are very few who you would rate at the level with Miguel Estrada. Every Hispanic in this country ought to be proud of it. I am calling on every Hispanic in the country, whether Democrat, Independent, Republican, whether you are liberal, moderate or conservative, you better start calling the Democrats and let them know this is not fair, this is not right. It is abysmal. Some would say abominable."
Indeed, it is.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
DNC
The moral high ground is where I'd rather be.
Miguel A. Estrada
Born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Miguel A. Estrada immigrated to the United States with his family as a teenager. He is currently a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, where he is a member of the firm's Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Group and the Business Crimes and Investigations Practice Group.
Mr. Estrada graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor’s degree from Columbia College, New York in 1983. He received a juris doctor degree magna cum laude in 1986 from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. After law school, Mr. Estrada served as a law clerk to the Honorable Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then clerked for the Honorable Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court.
From 1990 until 1992, Mr. Estrada served as Assistant U.S. Attorney and Deputy Chief of the Appellate Section, U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York. In 1992, he joined the United States Department of Justice as an Assistant to the Solicitor General. In those capacities, Mr. Estrada represented the government in numerous jury trials and in many appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Before joining the U.S. Attorney's Office, Mr. Estrada practiced law in New York with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.
Get a clue, Orrin. Lucy will never let you kick that football.
TELL YOUR DEMOCRAT SENATOR YOU'LL REMEMBER THIS FILIBUSTER NEXT ELECTION 202-224-4691
Just what I was thinking. Since we can count on non-coverage from the mainstream media, let's get Hatch's righteous denunciation -- and thunderous echoes from Republicans everywhere -- onto every talk show, Internet site, and letters-to-the-editor page possible.
When Bush has put the same number of people within the federal system, maybe the whining won't fall upon deaf ears.
But more important is the scorched earth tactic of a filibuster against a minority nomination - it just screams racism, partisanship, un-Americanism, etc...... and nobody, not Frist, not Santorum, not Hatch, not even Bush, is making the dims pay by launching full frontal media blitzes. Instead, they're leaving it up to Rush to carry the load, and he's doing a great job of it, but I'd like to see the Party be much more aggressive. This has got to stop.
I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to the future of this country to at least achieve some balance in the federal judiciary, which is currently loaded with so many Klintonites that every single basic premise upon which this country was founded is at risk. The danger of dropping the ball during this administration, and with a Republican Congress, in my opinion equals or exceeds the danger presented by Al Qeada, Iraq, North Korea or anything else confronting this Republic.
All those bastards can do is kill some of us, but the leftists can kill everything that made this country great, which leads to death by a thousand pin pricks for all of us, because we will no longer be Americans but something very, very different.
Oh, so you're one of those "we change the rules as we go along kind of guys, huh? Implying that prior judicial service is a prerequisite for serving on an appellate court?
Before making that argument, you may want to check out the courts served on by Clinton's appointees to that same court. You may find that nearly half hadn't previously served as a judge either.
http://www.ifr-ors.com/ors_2_live/clients/moa/estrada/index.cfm?A=910&L=NULL&P=NULL
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