Posted on 02/28/2003 6:46:35 AM PST by Stand Watch Listen
While there is very little being written about it, the Democrat´s three week filibuster of the President´s nomination of Miquel Estrada to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is already longer than their blockage of the Civil Rights Bill in the 1960s. The Democrats have quietly obstructed not only Estrada, but also many other Bush nominees, from the moment he was inaugurated in 2001.Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman James Eastland, Democrat of Mississippi, obstructed the 1964 Civil Rights Bill in the Judiciary Committee. However, the bill´s manager, Senator Hubert Humphrey, also a Democrat, by-passed the Judiciary Committee with parliamentary maneuvering to bring the bill to the floor on February 26, 1964. For eighty-three days the bill was blocked by Southern Democrats filibustering. The bill finally passed 73-27 on June 19th and was signed by President Lyndon Johnson.
Today the Senate is in the grips of what Sen. Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has dubbed Senate Democrats’ Weapons of Mass Obstruction in their effort to block Miquel Estrada, an Hispanic with a "golden" recommendation from the liberal American Bar Association. Approval by the Bar Association once was the Democrats benchmark for approving judges.
The minority Democrats are finding that Orrin Hatch, and President Bush are not going to quietly allow them to reverse the 2000 and 2002 elections when voters chose Republican leadership. Estrada was nominated in May 2001, almost 2 years ago, when there was a 50-50 split in the Senate between Republicans and Democrats with Vice President Cheney voting when there was a tie.
The first "coup d´etat" occurred when Democrats managed to entice liberal Republican, Jim Jeffords, into their camp with promises of support for money for his state projects. That lasted until September 2002 when the Democrat controlled Judiciary Committee finally voted, on a party-line vote, to reject the Estrada nomination. That was followed by something of a whirlwind effort on the part of President Bush to urge voters to "send him a Senate I can work with." Five new Senators were elected with four of them supporting Bush.
With a clear Republican majority, Bush re-nominated the well-qualified Estrada and other judgeship nominees the Democrats had blocked. They believed they would be able to increase their hold on the Senate in the November election if they just ignored the President´s nominees.
The 2002 election shocked the left-wing Democrats and groups such as "People for the American Way, the Abortion Rights Groups, the National Organization for Women that have controlled American politics for decades. They bragged about their well-organized political action campaign "to counter the growing clout" of those in public life like George W. Bush, John Ashcroft and, now, Miquel Estrada with religious beliefs.
The "People for the American Way" is a group founded in 1980 by television and movie producer Norman Lear and claims as its major successes on its website such efforts as, rushing "leaders and staff to Florida the day after the presidential election," forcing Florida schools to stop teaching Bible as History classes, opposing the school voucher program because it would allow students to choose religious, rather than public, schools, lawsuits protecting pornography on the Internet, and seemingly underlying it all, efforts to keep any religious or conservative judges from being appointed.
Democrat efforts to control the Judiciary with left wing or liberal judges is not new. It was, of course, going on for eight years in the Reagan Administration, four years in the Bush Sr. Administration and eight years in the Clinton Administration. What is new is the filibuster and the now clearly public push to get their way, in spite of the White House and the Congress now being controlled by Republicans.
As Sen. Hatch put it,
"Too many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle appear beholden to groups like People for the American Way. But their brand of politics includes obstructing the confirmation of qualified men and women to the federal judiciary using any available weapon. To them, this is war, and all is fair – even if it means smearing the reputation of good, solid nominees. That sort of politics isn´t the American way at all."
To Hatch, a Mormon, this pitched war for control of the Judges of the nation is a familiar story. The Book of Mormon is a 1000 year political and spiritual history of the Nephites and Lamanites, people who came to the Americas about 600 BC from Jerusalem before the city was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar.
In about 90 BC they adopted a Republic system of government, put forth by their last righteous king, Mosiah, based on four great governmental principles that guided their judges:
- The concept that law, not force, authority, or personality, rules in society;
- that law will be determined by the voice of the people, supporting and preserving their free agency;
- that correct principles of law are given to man by G-d and
- the need for a spiritual foundation of that law.
These, obviously, are quite similar to the government that America´s founding fathers created. The Declaration of Independence outlines the notion, unknown in most countries, that all mankind have "certain unalienable rights." Our Constitution took that concept and created a procedure, determined by votes of the majority, to create law and interpret it through an independent and co-equal judicial system to preserve freedom. The east side of the United States U.S. Supreme Court building has a sculpture of Moses and the 10 Commandments.
The Nephite Republic lasted only 120 years. It died when the last of its righteous judges were assassinated and "when good men did too little, when a confused and troubled nation failed to turn to the light of the gospel and chose instead to walk in the darkness of its own worldly learning and criminal conceit," according to one Book of Mormon scholar.
George Washington warned in his Farewell Address that the system the founding fathers created would fail if its people lacked "virtue or morality." It will also fail if the people are too confused to take action when the independence of the Judiciary is lost.
Click here to contact Democrat Senators filibustering against Miquel Estrada
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This sentence should be broadcast as far and wide as possible!
We shall see.
This particular "war" in the Senate has potentially far greater repurcussions than the upcoming war in Iraq. If "W" and the GOP leadership fold in the face of Tiny Tom and Terrible Ted, then forget any Constitutionalists ever being confirmed in the Federal Judiciary.
With the Dimwits having the establishment media on their side, it will be interesting to see if the 'Pubs have the stomach to withstand a long siege.
Right now I am actively sending copies of the letter I have written to Schumer to all the Senators.
On the outside of the envelope I have written phrases such as "Senator Schumer has heard from his constituents who support M. Estrada." I have also written "Vote YES on Miguel Estrada."
They won't.
They know what the stakes are. The future of the Supreme Court ultimately hangs in the balance.
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