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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (16838)	5/10/2005 1:30:18 PM
From: tsigprofit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

junk - junk - junk They are talking about doing away with Senate procedures in use for over 200 years to prevent the majority from doing extreme things - and giving the minority some power - at least in the Senate. These guys, and what you are espousing, are not conservatives. They are radicals, with a radical agenda to overturn the US govt, and all policies from FDR's New Deal now to Senate tradition that helps balance powers in our government. RADICALS NOT CONSERVATIVES

To: Sully- who wrote (16838)	5/10/2005 1:40:47 PM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

Is it your position that the filibuster in itself is unconstitutional? jttmab

To: Sully- who wrote (16838)	5/10/2005 2:12:38 PM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 20773

October 1, 1968 Filibuster Derails Supreme Court Appointment In June 1968, Chief Justice Earl Warren informed President Lyndon Johnson that he planned to retire from the Supreme Court. Concern that Richard Nixon might win the presidency later that year and get to choose his successor dictated Warren's timing. In the final months of his presidency, Johnson shared Warren's concerns about Nixon and welcomed the opportunity to add his third appointee to the Court. To replace Warren, he nominated Associate Justice Abe Fortas, his longtime confidant. Anticipating Senate concerns about the prospective chief justice's liberal opinions, Johnson simultaneously declared his intention to fill the vacancy created by Fortas' elevation with Appeals Court Judge Homer Thornberry. The president believed that Thornberry, a Texan, would mollify skeptical southern senators. A seasoned Senate vote-counter, Johnson concluded that despite filibuster warnings he just barely had the support to confirm Fortas. The president took encouragement from indications that his former Senate mentor, Richard Russell, and Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen would support Fortas, whose legal brilliance both men respected. The president soon lost Russell's support, however, because of administration delays in nominating the senator's candidate to a Georgia federal judgeship. Johnson urged Senate leaders to waste no time in convening Fortas' confirmation hearings. Responding to staff assurances of Dirksen's continued support, Johnson told an aide, "Just take my word for it. I know [Dirksen]. I know the Senate. If they get this thing drug out very long, we're going to get beat. Dirksen will leave us." Fortas became the first sitting associate justice, nominated for chief justice, to testify at his own confirmation hearing. Those hearings reinforced what some senators already knew about the nominee. As a sitting justice, he regularly attended White House staff meetings; he briefed the president on secret Court deliberations; and, on behalf of the president, he pressured senators who opposed the war in Vietnam. When the Judiciary Committee revealed that Fortas received a privately funded stipend, equivalent to 40 percent of his Court salary, to teach an American University summer course, Dirksen and others withdrew their support. Although the committee recommended confirmation, floor consideration sparked the first filibuster in Senate history on a Supreme Court nomination. On October 1, 1968, the Senate failed to invoke cloture. Johnson then withdrew the nomination, privately observing that if he had another term, "the Fortas appointment would have been different." Reference Items: Henry J. Abraham. Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Kalman, Laura. Abe Fortas: A Biography. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Urofsky, Melvin I., ed., The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Garland, 1994. uspolitics.about.com