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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (64124)	5/7/2008 3:00:19 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543106

I don't see a real difference philosophical difference there. (Yours has a written rule and mine is just an understanding, but then your rule was broken so it was effectively no stronger than an understanding.)... What difference worth arguing about do you see? I thought you were originally espousing the belief that the Senate's only duty with respect to nominations is to tell the President whether or not the nominee is "qualified." My point was predicated on the belief that when you used the word "qualified," you were deliberately saying that "political" considerations should not be part of the judgment of what "qualified" means. I was disagreeing with that. The message that Rule 4 sent was twofold: first, it formalized a common understanding of the parties that the minority party would have at least some minimal say with respect to judicial nominations, and second, that the President would have to nominate people who would be at least minimally acceptable to the minority. Thus it has a moderating influence. When Hatch with the consent of the other Republican committee members and likely at the urging of the WH and the Party generally overturned the rule, he was effectively saying that the minority had no rights. But protection of the rights of the minority was an extremely important principle to the people at the Constitution Convention as well as to the people who ratified it. Rule 4 was thus well within the spirit of the framer's motives. And it recognized that someone might have the experience to be a federal judge, but might be so politically unpalatable that he should not sit on the bench.