Conservative Columnists: Lay off the Judiciary

Not a new rule, it has been in existance at least long enough for the Republicans to use it in the 90's.

 

See the actual numbers that show that the GOP blocked SIX TIMES AS MANY Clinton nominees as are now being blocked by the Democrats. The graph you posted shows only Circuit Court nominees and as such, only tells part of the story.

 

Nope.

Absolutely. It has given the minority in each party a say in recent court appointments, keeping the majority from simply pushing extremists and idealogues of either side onto the bench. Judges should be moderate and fair, not extreme and partisan. The current system helps to ensure that this will continue to be the case.

How can you possibly complain about ten out of over 200 nominees being blocked? The Senate is not supposed to be a rubber stamp for the President du jour, it is supposed to confirm only qualified, fair minded jurists to lifetime appointments on the bench.

 

You either couldn't care less about the Senate's tradition of comity and bipartisanship, certainly compared to the House, it's role as the more deliberative body of the two and, most ironically, the partisanship you've thrown at me several times in this thread... when, if this destruction of those traditions occurs, which is what you want, there will be a quantum leap in just that... unrestrained partisanship that will not end with this, but will continue into the forseeable future.

In short, you don't give a damn, and I'm surprised. Why should I continue this discussion, when you say, " i think you're giving into the worst sort of partisanship and being untrue to your own principles in this regard." I've explained my concerns. You either refuse, or don't care to listen, or you don't give a damn about where this will lead, in very short order. In my opinion.

As I said, I'm surprised that you can't comprehend my point, and the points that others have made here regarding the same thing. And I'm getting tired of repeating myself.

Oh, and SWTsig... I know this can get really frustrating, but we shouldn't just tell people to shut up. I know you can make your point in a better fashion.



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

The nomination of judges was made a pretty big issue in the last presidential election. It could be argued that Bush was elected to make judicial appointments (that's why I voted for him). The filibusters by the Democrats are being used to disenfranchise the American electorate. I have said many times that I am against EITHER PARTY using the filibuster, not just in the case of confirmations but in any instance. If people want to change policy, they need to get more legislators that agree with them elected, not circumvent the will of the electorate by using the filibuster.

 

As you said, the role of the Senate is "advice and consent." Since enough Democratic Senators do not consent to these nominees, it is time for Bush to withdraw them and nominate people who will get the consent of these Senators.

I disagree about your "goal," since to me it should be a "requirement."

How would you (or the rest of the GOP) felt had Clinton been able to nominate and have rubber stamped any far left liberal activist judge he wanted? I wouldn't have liked it at all and I lean further toward the left than you do. The Senate rules are there to assure that EVERYONE has a say in the process, not just the majority party.

 

And he is doing just that. Over 200 judges have been nominated, confirmed, and are now sitting on the bench. The only ones who have been held up are the most radical right-wingers of the bunch.

No, they are being used to enfranchise the half of the country that did NOT vote for Bush, a segment of America that deserves representation just as the majority party does.

You can be against it if you like, but filibuster is a parliamentary procedure with a long history of allowing the minority party to have a say in the operations of the government. Both sides have used it and both sides have the right to continue to use it when they are the minority party.

What of the will of the half of America who voted against Bush? Don't they deserve a voice?

I'll ask you the same question I asked basso, how would you have felt had Clinton been able to nominate and have rubber stamped any far left liberal activist judge he wanted?

 

Not really, if things were the way you describe the minority voice would be reduced to an ineffective whisper, always outnumbered and having no real say in the process. It is specifically to counteract the type of 'voice' that you mentioned that the filibuster is allowed, and is constitutional. The idea is to give the minority a real say, and not a token vote.

 

And in the Senate, it takes 60 such votes to bring debate to a close and send an issue to the full Senate. If the Dems don't feel that it is in their interests or the interests of their constituents to vote to close debate, then they have every right to use their votes to make their constituents voices heard.

The filibuster allows the voices of marginally less than half the country to be heard over the indignant shouts of marginally over half the country. The filibuster allows the minority an ACTUAL voice rather than the "whisper" that FB mentioned.

I do find it amusing that the people who are up in arms about this seemingly have no problem with the way the GOP used various parliamentary procedures (filibuster is one of these) to block six times as many Clinton nominees as are now being blocked by the Democrats.

 

I kind of hope they do as it will clearly show the country just how little interest the GOP has in actual debate, ethical standards, and playing by the rules. I believe that such an action would cause a backlash that would be felt by the GOP at the polls in '06 and '08. Just don't b**** when the Dem controlled Senate refuses to undo the "nuclear" option that the GOP invoked.

IMO, the "nuclear" option would be appropriate to use when and if we faced an issue that was so monumentally important that it could not be resolved in any other way. The "nuclear" option is called "nuclear" because it should be the option of last resort as it is destructive, divisive, and inappropriate except in the case of DIRE need. Pushing through obviously partisan judges should not rise to that level, especially given the history of the GOP when it comes to approving judges nominated by a President of the other party.

 

That is why Andy, our fearless...eh...Chicken-Hawk leader has proposed a NEW solution:

The Nu-que-lur option....VASTLY different from that silly Nuclear nonsense.

 

The mionority are represented by their senators voting AGAINST confirmation. The point is to have a vote. It is stupid to refuse to vote just because you aren't going to win. Next time a Democrat is projected to take the White House, can I just delay the Presidential election indefinitely. If not, it sure seems that my vote on the losing side is not being enfranchised, according to your logic.

America had a long history of slavery, until it stopped, segregation, until it stopped, genocide of the indiginous inhabitants, until it stopped. Just because something has existed, doesn't mean it should continue to exist.

I'm sorry to inform you that we live in a representative democracy. The will of the losers does not outweigh the will of the winners. The minorities interests are looked after by the contitution. There are measures in place to protect the minority, filibustering judicial nominations is not necessary, for either party.

I think every Clinton nominee should have gone to the Judicial commitee, and if they passed the commitee, should have received a vote on the floor. If a majority of senators voted for them, they should have been confirmed. I do not think a senator should have filibustered to keep a vote from taking place, even if the result is a justice that I disagree with politically.

 

If we had a couple of centuries of history where some body (not a particular person, a group or "body" of people) was able to "delay the Presidential election indefinitely," then there would be some precedent and that body should follow its established rules. The Electoral College does not have to elect the person who received the most votes for President, but when that happens, it is accepted as the way we do things and we move on.

Just as, since filibuster is a practice we have had in place for quite some time in part to protect the rights of the minority party, we should accept that 60 votes are necessary to bring an issue to the floor of the Senate. If the President doesn't have the 60 votes necessary to make that happen, he shouldn't be nominating that person in the first place.

And much of that history was preserved for quite some time by filibuster. At the time, the people in power recognized that even though the cause (ceasing discrimination and applying civil rights to blacks) was extremely just, the "nuclear" option was not the way to, as Larry the Cable Guy says, "get 'er done."

Filibuster exists so that the minority party has an actual say in the running of government and, in this case, the confirming of lifetime appointments to the Federal bench. If it ceases to exist, we will see the nasty partisanship that has caused much of the problems in politics these days to get even worse. We will see extremists taking lifetime appointments as jurists in Federal courts, which is not just bad for the GOP or Democrats, but will in the long run cause massive problems in America.

The Federal courts are not a place for extremists from the left or right and if you eliminate the filibuster, that is what you will get. I don't want to see someone of Bill O'Reilly's political persuasion on the bench any more than you would like to see someone with Molly Ivan's politics confirmed.

Those powers include the right of the Senate to make rules, one of which is the filibuster which was put in place to protect the minority. The filibuster is entirely Constitutional, has been an established parliamentary procedure for a LONG time, and wasn't even scrapped when Senators were using it to block civil rights legislation, which I would argue is a much more just cause than confirming far right-wing judges to the Federal bench.

I don't. I don't want any far left extremists on the Federal bench any more than I want to see far right extremists there. Filibuster is one of the procedures that is in place to keep just that from happening and it is working brilliantly, I might add.