As the deadline for a vote over judicial filibusters drew closer, a bipartisan group of senators worked behind the scenes Thursday to fashion an agreement to avoid a dramatic showdown.
The Senate Major Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has threatened that next Tuesday he will move to change the Senate rules to abolish the use of the filibuster that Democrats have employed to block a number of President Bush’s judicial nominees.
The test case for the challenge is Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, whose nomination to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals continued to be debated on the floor of the Senate.
The day was filled with heated rhetoric. Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania compared the Democratic protests over GOP moves to have judicial nominees confirmed to Adolph Hitler’s seizing of Paris in 1942 and then saying, “I’m in Paris. How dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city. It’s mine.”
First guess- Frist doesn’t have the votes or some Senators looked at some polling data and it scared the bejeezus out of them.
Possibly they know they don’t have the votes, and are getting some moderates in safe seats working on a negotiation to avoid getting defeated in a vote. That way they can pretend to have been side-swiped by the moderates and not feel the wrath of the theocon community they have whipped into a frenzyt. If you haven’t paid attention to the last few weeks, the religious righties have been ramping up the rhetoric every day:
Fargus
Dobson is insane, and Santorum is doubly so. At least we can ignore Dobson, but when you’ve got a guy who’s previously gone on the record condemning comparisons to Hitler, now USING comparisons to Hitler…you’ve got to wonder if he’s honestly clinically insane.
Bruce
I voted for Bush largely over the Judges issue. I wanted to see more conservative originalists on the bench and the Dems won’t put them there. The Dems favor judges who make up law without legislation.
I beleive that if the judiciary had not stepped in then the people would have had an opportunity to create the abortion laws instead of having the court impose it. I think if we had gone through the law making process we would have a better abortion law (finding ways to limit partial birth abortions and other abortions in the last trimester, for instance.) But the court took away our opportunity to have that discussion and imposed a poorly thought out law.
The justices have stolen a number of opportunities from the people to create their laws through legislation. The court needs to learn to work with congress on these issues instead of comming up with goofy formulations like “affirmative action is legal today but it will not be in 25 years.”
These Judges are not supposed to invent laws.
Jason
Personally I think approving judges with more than 60 votes is a good thing. I think considering that judges have lifetime appointments that their appointments should be require broader and deeper support.
Stormy70
I found this poll to be very interesting, only because I had not seen it reported before.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2005/Judicial%20Nominations–May%2014.htm
ppgaz
Democrats know that half — or more– or the country has no intention of submitting to the rule of religious ideologues who care nothing for the legacy of American law, and care only to impose their narrow and evil — disguised as “righteous” — views upon the rest of us.
I say, give these rightwing assholes no quarter whatsoever. They are not truly religious, and they are not righteous. Their motivator is their own sociopathic egos. I may have to share a country with them — reluctantly — but I don’t have to be governed by them.
The right has called for a cultural, holy war. Fine, they have one. They are the enemy. They have thrown away the right to be called my fellow Americans. They are not my fellow Americans.
Stormy70
ppqaz – are you saying that there should be a religous test for judges?
DarkMech
“You play with fire and brimstone, you get burned”
Wow, I really like that. Good analysis, I think the GOP is being “hijacked” on these issues, but the DEMs are not providing any voice of reason.
ppgaz
I said what I meant, and meant what I said.
Recast it for your own entertainment, if you have nothing else to do.
The religious right has declared war on this country. I intend to fight back. Take that to mean whatever you want to think it means.
JKC
Santorum is probably not insane. He does, however, have the intellect of a potted plant.
John Cole
I think there should be a religious test for judges- it should go like this:
Can you faithfully interpret the law and statutory intent without injecting your version of religion into state affairs?
They can be as religious as they want, otherwise.
Sojourner
“ppqaz – are you saying that there should be a religous test for judges?”
Absolutely there should be a religious test. Can you follow the Constitution and laws of this country even when they conflict with your religious beliefs? When Priscilla Owen injected religion into the issue of under-age abortion, she flunked that test. Goodbye, Priscilla.
Nash
As a Christian, I continue to be as bewildered by fellow Christians who claim that Christianity is “under attack” in this country as by others who claim we face an incipient theocracy. I don’t see either as being true.
Sure, I see specific cases where the PC police have gotten far too full of themselves (examples: yes to the Kwanzaa display and menorah on government property, no to the creche; yes to the native American religious chant at the 3rd grade pageant, no to Silent Night).
My point is that these instances should and can be addressed as individual problems and not thrown in as some diabolical uberplot by dirty secularists and non-Christians to rid the country of all traces of a traditional Christian heritage.
I feel very secure in this. Not smug, secure. I don’t feel I’m being obtuse or closed eyed–I simply don’t feel under attack. And I find the donning of the cloak of “victimhood” by fellow Christians as particularly unseemly and paradoxically, un-Christian. I don’t deny the vehemence of the feeling held by many fellow Christians. I just don’t get it.
Is there *anyone* out there who feels the same way?
John Cole
I feel very secure in this. Not smug, secure. I don’t feel I’m being obtuse or closed eyed–I simply don’t feel under attack. And I find the donning of the cloak of “victimhood” by fellow Christians as particularly unseemly and paradoxically, un-Christian. I don’t deny the vehemence of the feeling held by many fellow Christians. I just don’t get it.
You are SANE.
Sojourner
Hey Nash:
You don’t think this filibuster fight is about attempts by the religious right to take control of the courts? Certainly that’s why Frist is doing it. He wants to be comfortably in bed with the far right when he makes is run for the presidency.
Nash
You are SANE.
My hard-earned reputation shot all to hell in 3 words.
synuclein
Too bad for Frist though on the Religious Right.
There is much speculation on the Kos boards that, in ’08, Dobson and his ilk will toss him overboard in favor of a candidate who doesn’t have the dirty laundry (from too many decisions popular with the Religous Right and generally unpopular — see polling #’s for Schiavo, filibuster, etc.).
If the Religious Right backed Frist, and he actually ran — I can just see the ads from MoveOn, etc. pointing out how he should be brought up on malpractice charges (Schiavo “diagnosis” on the floor of the Senate) or has damaged the 200 year old history of the legislature (Filibuster vote). Both of these issues are popular with Dobson, etc. but poll well below 50% in the general populace. Add to that, the votes of the pet owners (don’t think that there won’t be some sort of ad blitz from PETA or the like on Frist’s activities in med school with vivisection of pound animals).
There is almost no way that the Religious Right won’t cast him aside in favor of a less tainted candidate.
Nash
You don’t think this filibuster fight is about attempts by the religious right to take control of the courts?
Of course, some people are in it for that reason, but you malign many if you think everyone who opposes you or me on this has that as their main or only motivation. Some truly find the filibuster offensive. Some are simply against anything the Democratic Party favors. Some like the intellectual debate. Surely there are other reasons as well.
And were this to actually happen to a degree, I think we would survive it. I think any country that can survive a Roger B. Taney as Chief Justice can also weather a Priscilla Owens or two.
When it comes to the long-term for this country of ours, I’m one of those obnoxious optimists.
Stormy70
“No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust.” – US Constitution.
This seems clear to me. Beleif in God , or disbeleif in God should have zero bering on the process. All judges should have an up or down vote in the Senate, and a Senator can vote for or against. The Constitution does not require a supermajority vote on judges, and if you want the rules to change, the Constitution will have to be amended. Why is this hard?
All these judges have been asked your question, John , in committee, and each answered that they would follow the laws as written. They deserve a vote.
synuclein
C’mon Nash — knock off the cheery optimism, next thing, you’ll be posting little smiley faces.
Seriously — I agree that we could probably, as a nation, survive a Priscilla Owens or two on the federal bench.
My concerns lie with the precedents that they are attempting to establish here. What is to stop the majority from altering the rules on filibuster on legislative matters next? I know, the Senate has rules — you need a 67 vote supermajority to change them. Of course, they aren’t calling for a vote to change the rules here, Frist’s using a parlimentary “bypass” to allow for a simple majority to overrule the Senate rules. Once that is estabished, they can certainly do it again.
Stormy70
The Senate rules change all the time, and somehow we have survived this long. I agree with Nash’s opinion, and I share his optimism.
synuclein
Hey Stormy —
Just to clarify a few misconceptions in your post.
The Senate gets to set their own rules (as per the Constitution), and the rules are carried over from one session to the next — creating a continuity for the Senate (this is due to the rotating nature of the Senate — unlike the House, where they have a complete recycling {theoretically} of the body every 2 years).
Note also that those rules require a 67 vote majority to change the rules. This has been done in the past, for example: with the revision of cloture being shifted from 67 to the current 60 votes. Is there some problem with this system — that the Republicans need to force a parlimentary “trick” to break a filibuster?
Also note that the Constitution says NOTHING about the fact that the Senate has to give all Presidential appointees a vote. The Constitution only states that the Senate provide “advice and consent”. If the Senate, based on its rules, decides not to consent (either by “blue slip”, stalling in committee, filibuster, or rejection on the floor) that is the right of the Senate.
This op ed in the Boston Globe points out concisely what some of the problems are with the arguments of the Republican party on this issue.
Lee
this has got to be the most anti-Christian main-stream site in the blogospere. ppgaz, my man/woman, you need to do some serious rethinking. i (as a Christian) am not the enemy.
“The right has called for a cultural, holy war. Fine, they have one. They are the enemy. They have thrown away the right to be called my fellow Americans”.
if you’re ready to fight Christians, try the sudan or Iraq. there, your sanity won’t be questioned. Here, let me be the first….
Stormy70
Look, everyone knows that where you come down on this issue depends on who’s ox is being gored. If Republicans used the filibuster, everyone of these articles would pick the opposite position. In fact, several newspapers did take a position against the filibuster in the 90s and have since changed their position. It’s politics, and the Senate makes their own rules, and if every trick is accorded to the minority party, then don’t complain when the majority party employs some procedural tricks of their own.
Rick
Reposting from another thread, here’s a detailed exam of an extremist that got a quick vote in the Senate:
http://www.nationalreview.com/benchmemos/063778.asp
We need a Priscilla Owen type to balance out this wackadoo.
Cordially…
John Cole
Lee- Could you please point me to one anti-Christian thing I have written.
I hgave railed repeatedly, loudly, and belligerently against some in the religious right and what they are doing, but I do not recall ever saying anything against Christianity.
Of course, the failure to recognize that distinction is part of the reason we are in the mess we are in, with hucksters pretending to speak for all Christians and by allowing them to define what being Christian means.
Stormy70
I think Lee was referring to some of your commenters on the site, not neccessarily you, John. However, you sometimes seem to be lumping all Christians on the Right with the more fringe elements. Some newcomers to your site may not know your background and lack the context of your older posts, and so they assume you mean all Christians. You do get a little excited sometimes. ;)
Rick
Stormy,
John is excited pretty much at all times, which is why I said a month ago something to the effect that the official Balloon Juice language is High Dudgeon.
And that part directed at the wispy theocratic threat has, to borrow from Orwell, drawn “progressives” to this site like bluebottles to a dead cat.
If one is looking to peddle crazy here, there’s no need. With John’s new readers, he’s all stocked up.
Cordially…
Nikki
I came to Balloon Juice because it was recommended by several liberal sites as a good blog from a moderate conservative. I lurked for a while before I actually posted. From a liberal Christian perspective, I believe that I have yet to read anything in either the posts or the comments that smacks of anti-Christianity.
Stormy70
Rick – you are correct, as always. I bow to your superior knowledge of the crazies. John is in High Dudgoen (excellent use of a ten dollar word) right now, but I don’t remember him being all excited, all the time back in the day. I have read him for years, but lurked quietly. I sometimes emerged for a good movie thread comment, then went back into lurkerville.
John Cole
John is excited pretty much at all times, which is why I said a month ago something to the effect that the official Balloon Juice language is High Dudgeon.
Guilty as charged.
Sojourner
Certainly, people have complained about the filibuster for generations. But there’s one important difference. This is the first time there has been an attempt by the majority of kill it and they’re trying to do it outside the rules of the Senate.
Sojourner
Rick fails to mention that Ginsberg was nominated only AFTER Clinton had gotten Hatch’s approval for her nomination. Which means, folks, that Ginsberg had BI-PARTISAN SUPPORT.
If Bush had done this with his more critical nominations, we would not be in this mess. Instead, Bush not only does not cooperate with the Dems but he also puts up already rejected nominees. His in-your-face approach has wonderfully divided this country. Thanks, W!
Rick
Sojourner, check with Far North about find a good learning institution, because your statements show woeful unawareness of the record.
Ginsburg, in fact, was overwhelmingly approved by the whole Senate. My link reports it at 95-3, or some such. Yet she is an extremist, but not an unqualified one.
It was kindly of Clinton to seek input, but there’s no way of knowing if Hatch’s opinion truly mattered to WJC. But Orrin got on board, being a rather meek, go-along guy.
Consider the scale balanaced with Bush renominating a couple of Clinton’s nominees who expired in committee in 2000.
Bush not only does not cooperate with the Dems but he also puts up already rejected nominees.
Really? Really rejected? Who, and please give the vote totals on the “rejection?”
Some “reality-based community.” How about “inverted-reality community,” was witnessed by this bass-ackwardness?–This is the first time there has been an attempt by the majority of kill it and they’re trying to do it outside the rules of the Senate.
I’ll back off just a bit, to allow one of your cohort–maybe Libertine–to explain your error of fact and logic.
Cordially…
Cordially…
Andrei
“Rick – you are correct, as always. I bow to your superior knowledge of the crazies.”
We’ve already had reason to believe you were a lamb being led to the slaughter, a follower of whomever leads the flock. Now you’ve basically admitted it. [/sarcasm]
By the way, the religious right — as in the political movement that has been building up their base of political power since the Reagan years — is basically calling for a war of sorts. They were the ones who put the term cutural war into the public meme, not me. And in that regard, I think ppgaz has a reasonable point.
If they want to fight over issues like gay marriage or abortion rights or the right to die or real science or allowing stem cell research to exist, well, I’m more than happy to take off the gloves. I’d prefer diplomacy, but the situation in our administration dictates to me that too many of them do not wish to engage in compromise. The reason why I think so many progressive get upset with the kind of rebukes and ad hominems Stormy, Rick and others on the GOP side make when we engage in debates with them is that far too often, that plays right into the hand of our common problem: extremsits. If we snipe at each other, extremists will win out of the deadlock that occurs when seemingly reasonable people don’t discuss issues reasonably.
The GOP is one big mess of a party it seems to me right now. (The Dems still feel DOA to me, by the way.) There are the religious right, who have been used to gain enough votes to get party members control of all branches of the government. There are the corporatists, who have played the religious right and other working class Americans who tend to side with the RR for fools to give them the power they need to make the money they want. (My belief is that Bush falls into this camp by the way, I don’t beleive Bush is part of the RR.) And then there are the more traditional GOPers mixed with moderates. These seem to be the ones who have traditionally in the past preferred to err on free trade, capitalism and less government regulation than on the side the Dems used to err on, which was far too much govenment, taxing and spending.
Now it seems the coporatists has unleashed the religious right genie, and the moderates have been caught off guard. What I can’t understand is why more of the moderates take back their party and reign in the corporatists? Given the poll numbers of late, it would seem that if the coporatists and the moderates in the GOP smacked down a few more aspects of the RR base by say… Nominating a judge who is progressive and will uphold something like abortion rights… they’d win back a majority of the moderate Americans out there who would prefer to vote GOP but are now being forced to reconsider what it is they want to America to stand for given what we are seeing in Washington today. Just how bad does it have to get before a party reforms?
I mean, they let the term “nuclear option” creep into the public meme on the judges issue! Last time I checked, we all die in a nuclear war. Or at least a very large majority of us. What kind of craziness is this?
In the sort of cultural war that the RR seems to want, I’m on ppgaz’s side. In the broader issue of how do we govern ourselves, I imagine I’d find myself in agreement with of some of the more conservative voices on these boards even though they treat people who disagree with them in the same childish manner as guys like Hannity and Limbaugh treat their subjects.
I was one of those people who was ready to vote for McCain back in 2000. Last two elections, I voted Dem for president, then Libertarian for everything else, not because I believe in the Libertarian party (I agree with a lot of what they stand for, just not all), but because I’m sick of the Limbaughesque partisanship that drives politics and too many people to take sides in order to “win” not in order to do what’s “right.” FWIW. Sorry for the verbosity. It’s Friday.
Kimmitt
If the filibuster is bad, get your 67 votes and change the Rules of the Senate. That’s how we do things in democratic countries.
Kimmitt
Really? Really rejected? Who, and please give the vote totals on the “rejection?”
Not really relevant — nominees are rejected if there is no action taken on the nomination within 30 days of it being submitted. So there wasn’t a vote; instead, the nominees lingered in limbo during political maneuvering and eventually expired.
Sojourner
Um, how do these statements contradict what I said?
“Ginsburg, in fact, was overwhelmingly approved by the whole Senate. My link reports it at 95-3, or some such.”
Seems to me that one of the reasons she was overwhelmingly approved is because she was pre-approved by both sides of the judicial committee BEFORE she was nominated. Duh. Insulting me doesn’t bolster your case.
Are you suggesting that Hatch lied when he said in a recorded interview that he appreciated that both sides of the aisle were consulted by President Clinton and how much he respected Ginsberg? Your arguments appear to consist of little more than insulting me and making accusations against Hatch. Good job!
The nominees I’m referring to were Gonzales, Owen, and I forget who the others were that were put before the judicial committee and rejected by the then Democratic run committee. In the past, when a nomination was rejected by the committee, it was dead. Bush chose to stick it to the Dems by putting them up again. Another example of our fearless leader as a uniter not a divider.
And your issue with this is what? “This is the first time there has been an attempt by the majority to kill it and they’re trying to do it outside the rules of the Senate.” Inconvenient to you but factually true nonetheless.
Sincerely,
A Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community
Rick
So glad I’ve done a good job, Soujourner. And glad to see Andrei back, after he flounced off a few days ago with some de-linking BJ’s RSS or somesuch.
Kimmitt, I do expect more of you. I’m agnostic on the value of the fillibuster, but it certainly doesn’t take 67% or 60% to change a procedural rule. It’s 50% +1: “That’s how we do things in democratic countries.”
Clement Haynesworth, Harold Carwell and Robert Bork were among nominees rejected. They were voted on by the entire Senate. Which is relevant, Kimmitt.
Blue-slipping and smothering in committee stalls is not rejection. If so, then that damn Bush was real in-your-face with the Senate by renominating Clinton’s two at the start of his first term.
No one gpoing to ‘splain to “inverted reality” Sojourner to ludicrousness of the “point” I italicized earlier? Bueller? Bueller?
Cordially…
Sojourner
Look it up. It takes 67 votes to change Senate rules. Sadly, either Frist doesn’t know this or, more likely, he doesn’t care.
“Blue-slipping and smothering in committee stalls is not rejection. If so, then that damn Bush was real in-your-face with the Senate by renominating Clinton’s two at the start of his first term.”
Huh? This makes no sense. The committee voted and rejected these nominees. By Senate rules they were rejected. They were not blue-slipped, they were not smothered, they were voted on. Duh.
Rick
Sojourner,
You score another own-goal.
Look it up: Rule changes do not require 67 votes. They do require 2/3 for cloture to bring it to a vote, but the 2/3 is not of the entire Senate. It is of members present and voting (unlike cloture for other matters, which is 60% of those elected and seated).
And the maneuver in re: fillibustering judges is a “point of order.” Wow, totally nuclear, dude. Next step: Karl Rove rules by decree.
When you say “Gonzales,” I think you mean Estrada, who waited something like three years for a vote. Much the same for Owen. Neither was rejected. Things never got far enough for your “rejection” premise to be tested.
The same goes for the Clinton nominees that Bush re-submitted early in 2001. They weren’t “rejected” ever, just not acted on by Senate in 2000.
Cordially…
XB
Sojourner-It didn’t take 67 votes for Sen. Byrd to change the senate rules when he was majority leader-but he was a Democrat so that was OK.And if the Democrats still controlled the senate those Bush nominations would still be dead.But-I don’t know if you’ve noticed-they don’t.This is because-believe it or not-they LOST THE ELECTION.Unlike most Democrats,Republicans think this should matter.Hence Ruth B. Ginsburg was not filibustered.Got it?
Kimmitt
Or maybe President Clinton sat down with Senate leaders on the other side of the aisle and found a compromise candidate which was acceptable to both sides. It’s the difference between governing and ruling.
They were voted on by the entire Senate.
And dozens of Clinton’s nominees weren’t, due to changes in blue-slip rules. Look, this is stupid. Just admit that the rules were changed before and are being changed again to make it easier for Republicans to stuff their preferred judges into office.
You are quite correct that it does take 50% +1 to pass a rule change, but since 67% of those present are needed to bring cloture, then there we go. If you want to change the rules of the Senate, bring forward a rule change, debate it, and bring the debate to an end, the same way many other rules changes have been passed. This sort of end run, in which the actual Rules of the Senate are irrelevant to the “interpretation” of the Rules of the Senate is banana republic/Soviet Constitution crap. You won. You get 95% of the judges you want, and the other 5% is pretty damn negotiable. That’s what winning in a pluralistic society means. You get 95% of what you want and you call it a good day.