| Author |
Message |
    
zoe
Citizen
Username: Zoe
Post Number: 286
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 11:30 am: |     |
I must remind everyone again that over the years most great leftist victories have been won in our courts, not in the halls of congress. This is why Democrats are so determined to make sure that Bush does not get any true conservatives on any major appeals court benches. As a result, they filibuster.
The Democrats in the Senate say they are only doing to the Republicans what the Republicans did to the Democrats when Clinton was in office. You will hear this, but this is wrong. Before George Bush there has never been an instance where the minority party in the U.S. Senate filibustered the nomination of a judicial candidate who actually had the votes to win confirmation on the Senate floor.
The Constitution says these people should be seated with a majority of the Senate votes. The Democrats have changed the Constitution, now instituting a requirement for more than 60% of the votes.
Democrats will do ANYTHING, including ignore our Constitution, to reclaim the political power they think should be theirs, as a result nothing substantial gets done.
In fact, what legislation has Congress passed this year?
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C Bataille
Citizen
Username: Nakaille
Post Number: 1505
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 12:05 pm: | |
If the Republicans can't get legislation passed when they control both houses AND the white house, then life must be really tough for them. Mostly they've managed to mortgage our children's and grandchildren's futures thus far. And they appear poised to ruin our retirements as well. Has anyone actually looked at their proposals for prescription benefits for Medicare? You could use it to design a maze which you can only exit by paying a huge amount of your retirement income should you happen to have one of the common chronic disorders like hypertension, asthma, diabetes, cardiac issues, etc. Not to worry, tax cuts to the wealthy will surely cover those drugs. Me? My asthma meds alone run a couple of hundred dollars a month. And I use generics where I can. That'll be fun under the new system.
Cathy
aka Bacata/Nakaille |
Insite
Citizen
Username: Insite
Post Number: 96
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 12:50 pm: | |
Enough with the "mortgage our childrens future" lib-speak, please. I work hard and I deserve a tax break instead of watching my tax dollars help create a country embedded in social programs up the ying yang. stop the social programs and go back to the basics of National Security, Strong Infrastructure and returning of the power back to the states. Make jersey take up more of the burden rather than the entire nation if you "care" so much about it C Bataille , and give me another reason to move out of this state. PLEASE !!!!!! |
tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 1071
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 1:55 pm: | |
Dearest Zoe, our Constitution says,
quote:He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for
And says nothing about a majority of Senate votes, 50%, 60%, whatever. In fact, the word "majority" only appears once in the context of the legislative body, in that you need a "majority" to have a quorum.
Approval of a particular piece of business by the Senate is subject to the rules of that body. Some of them are really arcane and known only to great masters of obstruction such as Jesse Helms. Others are pretty straightforward, such as the filibuster rule.
But in order for anything to pass it has to clear all of those procedural hurdles, which force a degree of moderation on the proceedings. Advocates really have to build a broad consensus to get things done.
But back to your question -- who is it that's ignoring the Constitution? |
egreenfi
Citizen
Username: Egreenfi
Post Number: 37
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 3:13 pm: | |
In response to the opening question:
--Go to http://thomas.loc.gov/bss/d108query.html
--Scroll down to "Stage in Legislative Process"
--Choose "Cleared for White House
--Hit search
I got a list of 68 items, which I tried to post here but is too large, apparently. |
face
Citizen
Username: Face
Post Number: 80
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 3:27 pm: | |
egreenfi, are any of the 68 meaningful? Or are they just new ways to spend more. |
duncanrogers
Citizen
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 629
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 8:40 am: | |
Insite.. If you hate New Jersey so much. Just leave. Simple as that. You might enjoy some measure of happiness elsewhere. |
egreenfi
Citizen
Username: Egreenfi
Post Number: 40
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 10:12 am: | |
face, I haven't examined them. If you do as I suggested, you'll be able to click on links to read for yourself.
Oh, and BTW, this search does not lead you to a page with a persistent URL - it times out after a while. |
jrf
Citizen
Username: Jrf
Post Number: 341
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 10:49 am: | |
The Democrats are setting a dangerous president by using the filibuster to avoid votes on judicial nominees. The federal judiciary is nearing a crisis in certain parts of the country. While Republicans certainly delayed Clinton appointees, it was never done to this extent and ultimately, concessions were made or the vote was finally taken.
The Democrats are trying to use the rules of the Senate to change the will of the people. Ultimately, they are wasting taxpayer money and doing harm to democracy. If the majority votes in favor of a judicial candidate, they are in. If they majority vote against, they are out. By refusing a vote they are pushing a minority opinion on the majority of Americans who sent more Republicans than Democrats to the Senate.
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duncanrogers
Citizen
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 631
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 11:07 am: | |
Whoa Whoa whoa there jrf..
the Democrats are trying to use the rules of the Senate to change the will of the people.
how would you characterize what the republicans did with the 2000 election?
Same sentence... this small change
"The Republicans are trying to use the Supreme Court to change the will of the people"
POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK AWARD
apologies to the much more coveted poopiehead award dispensed by Sbenois Engineering, LLC
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Nohero
Citizen
Username: Nohero
Post Number: 1869
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 11:34 am: | |
Jrf wrote: "Republicans certainly delayed Clinton appointees, it was never done to this extent and ultimately, concessions were made or the vote was finally taken."
That's completely incorrect. The Republican Senate didn't clear the Clinton backlog. And, if there's a "crisis" now, then it was more of a "crisis" when the Republicans were holding up Clinton's nominees, because there were more vacancies back then. |
tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 1072
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 11:39 am: | |
How about changing this:
quote:By refusing a vote they are pushing a minority opinion on the majority of Americans who sent more Republicans than Democrats to the Senate.
to this:
quote:By nominating far-right judges they are pushing a minority opinion on the majority of Americans who cast more ballots for Democrat than for Republican presidential candidates.
Now isn't that the crux of it? Nader votes + Gore votes = more votes on the left than on the right, especially in Florida. So whose will is it exactly, that the court get packed with right-wingers? |
Mr. Reingold
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 306
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 11:43 am: | |
face, to answer that question, you would have to take a look at the
legislation passed in previous sessions and compare them
painstakingly with the current and recent legislation. Even if
egreenfi did all of your homework for you, are you ready to accept
his conclusion?
I think the question boils down to the comment, "If I don't
understand it, it must be inessential and wasteful." It reminds me
of the office politics that go on in large companies. The movie
"Office Space" has a great story, wherein the company hires
management executives to give advice on whom to lay off. The
consultants interview each person. Not having the background to
understand people's jobs, they conclude that most people can be let
go.
I'm not saying that all government is categorically essential, but I
reject the implication that if we don't know what it is, it is
categorically a waste. This goes for the federal and county
governments, both of which people are complaining about here on MOL.
Tom Reingold
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jrf
Citizen
Username: Jrf
Post Number: 342
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 12:11 pm: | |
I'll make this real easy.... President Bush gained seats in the House and Senate in an off election year. He was the first President capable of doing this for over 50 years!
If that is not a mandate than what is? |
jrf
Citizen
Username: Jrf
Post Number: 343
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 12:24 pm: | |
Tom,
You constantly use the 2000 presidential election as the basis of all of your arguments (broken record). At the end of the day, it's the Electoral College and not the popular vote - silly.
Since you never make a political argument with any sense or facts (always loaded with biased political non-sense), perhaps you can try changing the Constitution to fit your needs. I am sure Hilary Clinton would work on removing the Electoral College since the popular vote is the only possibility she has to get elected so your effort would be well financed.
In my opinion, the Electoral College gives the smaller states a voice in each presidential election. Without it, presidential hopefuls would simply sellout to the wants of New York, Texas, Florida and California and leave the other states with their issues ignored. This is the exact reason why the founders of our country put this provision into the Constitution.
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duncanrogers
Citizen
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 632
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 12:45 pm: | |
Whoa Whoa Whoa yet again JRF
"perhaps you can try changing the Constitution to fit your needs"
Whats good for the goose is good for the gander.
POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK again.
Seriously, it would behoove you to hop on down from that high horse for a minute and look at what you are saying. Everything you accuse the democrats of doing, your own boy is currently doing. Its like a thief accusing another thief of stealing his stuff. There is no moral high ground. |
tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 1073
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 12:46 pm: | |
As though winning the popular vote were some kind of stigma...
jrf, the Constitution doesn't need to be changed. My earlier post holds true: there's nothing there about a majority of the Senate voting to confirm judges.
At the end of the day, it's the RULES OF THE SENATE, and not the popular vote - silly.
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jrf
Citizen
Username: Jrf
Post Number: 344
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 1:19 pm: | |
How about some examples Duncan? If you bring up the 2000 Florida election, please show me where any creditable recount showed Gore would have carried Florida. |
jrf
Citizen
Username: Jrf
Post Number: 345
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 1:26 pm: | |
Tom,
>>At the end of the day, it's the RULES OF THE SENATE, and not the popular vote - silly.<<
EXACTLY!!!! So we did you bring the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election into my original post about the Senate?
My original post talked about the dangerous president the Senate democrats are setting by using the filibuster to avoid votes on federal judges. You shot back with the 2000 election. Sheessh, it’s like talking to a brick.
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anon
Citizen
Username: Anon
Post Number: 737
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 1:44 pm: | |
The entire purpose of the Senate is to be a check on Democracy, on majority rule. It's rules and procedures are designed to make things go slowly, not quickly. Read "Master of the Senate", one of the volumes of the biography of LBJ. For years the "conservatives" used the fillibuster to defeat "liberal" legislation favored by the majority.
Bush did not run for President on a far right agenda, so even a lot of folks who voted for him would probably not prefer far right judges to moderates such as O'Connor. And seven of the nine current members of the Supreme Court were appointed by GOP Presidents. Finally, when the average voter casts a vote for a candidate for Congress or the Senate I doubt that he thinks about giving the President a mandate as to judicial appointments. How many voters in Minnesota who voted for Norm Coleman instead of Walter Mondale did so because they want Roe v. Wade overturned? |
jrf
Citizen
Username: Jrf
Post Number: 346
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 1:50 pm: | |
Anon,
Great post. I agree with your "checks and balances" analysis. I am concerned about the lack of progress on taking votes on judicial nominations.
There is currently a large backlog of cases in the federal judiciary and not putting appointments up for senate confirmation via a floor vote is making the backlog even larger. Yes - while Clinton was president there were several judicial candidates who were voted down on the Senate floor but the filibuster was never used to avoid taking the vote. |
Nohero
Citizen
Username: Nohero
Post Number: 1873
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 2:27 pm: | |
Sometimes a few facts are helpful.
Actual statistics on judicial confirmations in the current session of Congress are at this link. Since the session started in January, as of this date there have been 93 nominations. The Republican-controlled judiciary committee has not released 36 of those nominations yet. Of the remaining 57, 40 have been confirmed and the rest are pending. Only one or two have been filibustered, I believe.
As reported by the American Bar Association, during the first two years of President Bush's term (Senate held by Democrats most of the time), he nominated 131 judges, and 100 were confirmed by the Senate. In contrast, in the last 2 years of President Clinton's term (Senate held by Republicans), he nominated 116 judges, and 73 were confirmed. You do the math. |
duncanrogers
Citizen
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 633
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 2:43 pm: | |
I didnt say anything about Florida jrf. |
tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 1074
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 2:44 pm: | |
Let me try to explain, step-by-step, why the 2000 election is relevant to this issue in the context in which you yourself present it.
1) By refusing a vote they are pushing a minority opinion on the majority of Americans who sent more Republicans than Democrats to the Senate.
1a) (presumably) this means the minority should not overrule the wishes of the majority.
1b) the Republicans represent the majority because more people voted for them.
2) Two things have to happen for a person to become a judge.
2a) he has to be nominated
2b) he has to be confirmed
3) Assuming both parts of this to be of equal importance, then the wishes of the majority should should prevail of the wishes of the minority in the nomination part as well.
4) The nomination part is solely controlled by George Bush.
4a) George Bush was elected in 2000
5) George Bush was elected with a minority of the votes.
Therefore, if George Bush prevails in the final placement of these judges, the minority of voters prevail. But this is wrong, because he is pushing a minority opinion on the majority of Americans.
The answer: It's right there in the Constitution. "Advice and consent." Mr. Bush apparently feels nothing but contempt for this idea, though. That being the case, he deserves to be filibustered.
Your concern about filibusters, I might add, is a little disingenous. Sure, the GOP didn't filibuster Clinton's nominees. They used other procedural methods to make sure they never got out of committee. What's the big difference? In either case, the rules were used to prevent an up-or-down vote.
Of course to maintain a filibuster the Dems need 40 votes. But to keep a committee vote from coming up, all you need is 1. |
ml1
Citizen
Username: Ml1
Post Number: 1158
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 3:08 pm: | |
If anyone chooses to take the partisan blinders off for a moment (yeah, right), they might note that judicial confirmations have become an increasingly more arduous process over the past 25 years, regardless of the party of the Senate majority or the President. One could argue that this is a good thing -- after all, Senators are not elected to simply rubber stamp Presidential appointments. They have a role in this process.
Of course, it does appear that GWB likes to pick an occasional high profile fight with the Democrats over a nominee. It gets his conservative base riled up (look above for proof). How else could one explain his nomination of Brett Kavanaugh (author of the Starr Report)? He had to know that was like flipping a big, fat raised middle finger to Democrats in the Senate. |
Pierce Butler
Citizen
Username: Pierce_butler
Post Number: 28
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 3:13 pm: | |
In my opinion, we should not be satisfied with a federal judiciary that has been confirmed by the Senate by a 51-49 vote. If the Senate wants to assure that the judges it confirms have the support of at least 60 of its members (not a lot to ask), it is well within its power to use the filibuster rule sporadically to achieve that result.
Federal judges have a lot of power and serve for life. The President should nominate judges who are smart, have intellectual integrity, and will follow the law. The Senate should confirm only those judges who meet these criteria. Both parties are now degrading this process: the President by nominating a small number of right-wing looney tunes, and the Senate by crying "conservative ideologue" a little bit too often. If someone's judicial ideology (which, by the way, ought to be different from one's political ideology) is far outside the mainstream of American legal thought (e.g., William Pryor), s/he should never be nominated. But it is also ridiculous for Senators to dwell on such matters as who the putative judge represented as a lawyer (e.g., Robert Sutton) or what s/he has written in law review articles (e.g., Michael McConnell).
By the way, jrf, you keep saying that there is a tremendous backlog now, but I don't know if there is more of a backlog than there has ever been. What is your source? |
anon
Citizen
Username: Anon
Post Number: 739
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 5:18 pm: | |
OK ml1, let's take the partisan blinders off. Whatever one thinks about the 2000 election, George Bush is President and it is his job to nominate judges. No one else can do it. So he has to nominate people who in his opinion will make good judges.
Each member of the Senate was elected by the citizens of his or her State to serve those citizens. If a Senator from New Jersey feels that a particular nominee for the judiciary is unacceptable to the majority of the citizens of New Jersey does not that Senator have a duty to use any legal means to prevent that nominee from being confirmed? The Senator from New Jersey has no obligation to consider the views of the citizens of any of the other 49 States who may think the nominee is great. |
ml1
Citizen
Username: Ml1
Post Number: 1159
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 5:45 pm: | |
exactly -- for better or worse, all of our elected officials are fighting to serve the interests of the people who voted for them. And that is a good thing if it ultimately weeds out judges with extreme positions on issues. |
themp
Citizen
Username: Themp
Post Number: 132
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 1, 2003 - 10:56 am: | |
GWB chooses to nominate candidates who are much farther to the right of the mainstream of American life than Clinton's candidates were to the left (because Clinton was a centrist). Given Bush's contested election, why must he do that? There are so many highly-qualified judges out there who would serve the American people and be shoo-ins. |
bobk
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 3255
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, August 1, 2003 - 12:19 pm: | |
I find it amusing that this thread was started by an arch-conservative Republican at a time when the GOP controls both houses of Congress. Duh!!
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ml1
Citizen
Username: Ml1
Post Number: 1164
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Friday, August 1, 2003 - 12:31 pm: | |
not surprising -- it's gotta be especially infuriating when the minority party uses procedural rules to keep the majority from ramming legislation through on strict party-line votes. |
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