Good point but i still maintain the preservation of super majoritys in certain cases is a good thing. Are the dems being fair with it, nah. Would we use a filibuster to stop ramsey clark as CJ of Scotus if the tables were turned in the Senate. Yup.
Anyway what will be will be. The latest from cnn below.
Struggle over judges heats up in Senate
GOP leader brings Priscilla Owen's nomination to floor
Wednesday, May 18, 2005 Posted: 1:25 PM EDT (1725 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The showdown over President Bush's judicial nominees took center stage Wednesday in the U.S. Senate, with Majority Leader Bill Frist calling on the body to move toward an up-or-down vote on one of the most controversial picks.
Frist, R-Tennessee, brought Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen's nomination to the floor Wednesday morning, drawing fire from Democrats, who have fought her nomination since 2001.
Bush has nominated Owen to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Louisiana.
"All we want is a vote -- an up-or-down vote," Frist said.
Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and other Democrats urged Frist to move first on other judges who could be confirmed more easily.
Frist said that he would consider any compromise proposal but would move to change Senate rules by making a simple majority vote enough to prevent filibusters of judicial nominees.
That step has been dubbed the "nuclear option." Democrats have said they would respond by slowing Senate business to a crawl.
"We don't want the constitutional option. We didn't ask for the constitutional option," Frist said, referring to the nuclear option. "I think what's important now though is to come to the Senate floor; let's shed light on this."
Democrats have used the filibuster to block 10 of Bush's 218 judicial nominees. The president renominated seven of them this year, including Owen.
The filibuster, a form of extended debate that dates to the 1850s, can be overcome by a three-fifths majority of 60 votes. With Democrats holding 44 seats in the 100-member Senate, they could hold up a vote on a nominee indefinitely.
Reid said Republicans and Democrats should "sit down and talk through this issue and see if there is a way that we can resolve this short of this so-called nuclear option."
"I think it would be good for the American public to see that we are able to sit down in the same room and work things out," Reid said. "I'm not sure that we could, but I think it worthy of our efforts. Nothing ventured, nothing gained."
He charged that Democrats are "following the rules" and accused the Republican majority of " moving toward breaking the rules to change the rules."
"That's improper. It will change the Senate forever, and that's not good," Reid said.
He proposed all 100 senators meet in the old Senate chamber to hash out an agreement, but Frist rebuffed the proposal.
Frist also rejected a Reid plan to move forward with consensus nominees whose nominations will be delayed during the debate over Owen. In turn, Reid said Democrats would block all committee hearings while the debate is under way.
Specter urges colleagues to compromise
Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called for a bipartisan effort to reach a compromise without invoking the nuclear option. His committee decides on whether to send a nominee to the full Senate for a vote.
"Senators must take the initiative without being unduly influenced by the far left or far right," he said on the Senate floor. "Senators, with their leaders, must take charge to craft a way out. The fact is that all, or almost all of the senators, want to avoid the pending crisis."
He blamed both parties for creating an atmosphere of a competition "as to which party can control the judicial process throughout partisan maneuvering."
Specter added that the nuclear option is a bad idea because the "rights of the Senate's minority would be significantly diminished."
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, a ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, urged his Republican peers to reach across the aisle for compromise.
"If the rights of the minority are to be preserved, if the Senate is to be preserved as the greatest of parliamentary bodies, it would take at least six Republicans standing up for fairness and checks and balances," he said.
"History and those who follow us will carefully scrutinize these moments and these votes. And those voting to protect the rights of the minority will also be on the right side of history."
One of the questions that loomed over the debate was whether a compromise is even possible.
A bipartisan group of senators is scrambling to reach a deal. Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska, are brokering the plan, which McCain said would reserve the filibustering of court nominees -- including Supreme Court candidates -- for "the most extreme cases."
Jurist part of mainstream or too right wing?
Owen, the judge in question Wednesday, has sat on the Texas Supreme Court since being elected in 1994, and she won re-election in 2000.
Her supporters praise the judge for her no-nonsense rulings, saying she is a strong conservative with a high rating from the American Bar Association.
Opponents accuse her of being an extreme-right activist who favors Texas corporations over working families, opposes abortion rights and is too slow in writing opinions.
Frist said 84 percent of Texans consider Owen within the mainstream and that the Senate needs to answer the question, "Is Priscilla Owen out of the mainstream?"
Reid countered by saying that U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, formerly a Texas Supreme Court justice, has called Owen's activism on the bench "unconscionable."
"Mainstream? I think not," Reid said. "Shockingly unjust or unscrupulous -- that's what Priscilla Owen is in the mind of the attorney general of the United States."
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said Owen is more than qualified for the federal bench. "I have heard my colleagues and some interest groups use very extreme language to describe Priscilla Owen," she said. "These statements are coming in many cases from many people who have not met her."
At a Republican Party event Tuesday night, Bush demanded that senators approve his picks without further delay.
"In the last two elections, the American people made clear they want judges who will faithfully interpret the law, not legislate from the bench," Bush said.
"I have a duty to nominate well-qualified men and women to the federal judiciary. I have done just that, and I will continue to do so.
"The Senate also has a duty -- to promptly consider each of these nominations on the Senate floor, discuss and debate their qualifications and then give them the up-or-down vote they deserve." |
