At a session on June 9, 1954, Senator Joseph McCarthy charged that one of Joseph Welch’s attorneys had ties to a Communist organization. As an amazed television audience looked on, Welch responded with the immortal lines that ultimately ended McCarthy’s career: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” When McCarthy tried to continue his attack, Welch angrily interrupted, “Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?”
At a session on September 5, 2002, Senate Democrats led by Senator Patrick Leahy charged that Judge Priscilla Owen was an “extremist” and rejected her nomination to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Actually, this woman is a truly outstanding jurist, who was given top ratings by the Bar Association, and who was endorsed by 23 Texas newspapers. These Senate Democrats deprived citizens in the 5th Circuit of the services of this outstanding judge and they deprived Judge Owen of a position for which she was perfectly suited.
Then they threw in a casual slander.
From the cited article, it appears that Leahy’s only evidence of “extremism even in the conservative region” was one single decision she made, which he didn’t like. :eek: This case follows similar treatment of nominee Judge Charles. W. Pickering, a civil rights pioneer and Ku Klux Klan foe in Mississippi, who not only was rejected, but was tarred as a racist to boot.
Until this moment, I think I never really gauged Senator Leahy’s cruelty or his recklessness." Will he not stop assassinating the reputation of judicial nominees? He has done enough. Has he no sense of decency?
december, while I agree that ideology has become the primary ground for the Senate’s exercise of their “advice and consent” role, and I agree it’s a shameful state of affairs, I don’t agree that Leahy is a particularly egregious example of this. Indeed, the Senate treated Clinton judicial appointees just as shabbily under Republican control.
If you want to kick off a debate about how much of a factor ideology should be in determining Senate confirmation, that’s a very ripe field for discussion. If your intent is to merely suggest that Leahy, or Democrats, are practicing a wrong that by implication Republicans would not, I fear you’ve erred.
Republicans have certainly behaved this shabbily. After all, Joseph McCarthy was a Republican.
However, I believe that on today’s Senate Judiciary Committee, the Democrats have behaved more shabbily than the Republicans. The Republicans haven’t been perfect. I can recall one Clinton appointee, Ronnie White from Missouri, being called “soft on crime.” The charge may have been unfair, but it was based on more evidence than the Democrats had in the case of Judge Owen. Also, ISTM soft on crime is considerably less of an insult than racist or extremism even in the conservative region of the Supreme Court of Texas. YMMV.
Bricker, you have accused Republicans of behaving just as shabbily, I would ask you to back up your accusation or withdraw it.
I intentionally placed the OP into GD rather than the Pit in order to invite debate. My opinion is stated above. Have at it.
Three of President Clinton’s Fifth Circuit nominees waited for fifteen months or more and received neither a committee hearing nor a vote. Judge Ronnie White was rejected as a district court judge with a party-line 54-45 vote of the full Senate, even after the Judiaciary committee approved his nomination.
Bill Fletcher’s nomination to the Ninth Circuit was delayed for more than three years; Richard Paez’s was held up for four. Margaret Morrow was never given a vote for her nomination to federal district court. Margaret McKeown’s nomination to the Ninth Circuit was shut down. Sonia Sotomayor’s Second Circuit nomination died in committee as well. Enrique Moreno’s Fifth Circuit bid, Elena Kagan’s D.C. Circuit, and James Wynn’s Fourth Circuit nomination all died without a vote. Helene White was originally nominated to the Sixth Circuit in January, 1996, and withdrew her name after waiting four years for a confirmation hearing.
Jim Wynn, James Beaty, Roger Gregory and Andre Davis all were rejected for Fourth Circuit nominations. Beaty was approved by the Judiciary Committee but his vote was blocked in the full Senate; the other three were denied hearings.
During the first seven months of 1999, the GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee did not hold a single confirmation hearing.
None of these candidates were unqualified. All were either sitting federal judges, or state judges, or otherwise notable in the practice of law. None of them possessed records that put them outside the “mainstream” – we can argue further about the role ideology should have in confirmations, of course, but none of them had records that indicated any sort of consistent abuse of judicial discretion.
** Bricker **, thanks for your examples. You have demonstrated convincingly that the Republican Judiciary Committee held up Clinton judicial nominees, just as the Democratic. Judiciary Committee now holds up Bush nominees.
However, an element not present in your examples is the indecent slandering of the rejected nominees.
I maintain that this sort of routine vilification is currently the tactic of Democrats much more than of Republicans.
I fail to see why “soft on crime” is less of a slander than “extremism”. In fact, it seems to be more of one in the sense that almost everyone believes that crime is bad and one must punish it whereas not everyone seems to think that extremism in the conservative direction is a bad thing.
And, what exactly was this evidence of White being soft on crime? I seem to recall that it was something like that he only voted to uphold most death penalty convictions rather than all of them.
Characterizing a person as conservative is now considered ‘slander’? I thought that was reserved only for the term ‘liberal’.
Just 'cause some senator called it ‘slander’ doesn’t mean that it is.
And, in case you wanted more than ‘we report the facts and let you decide’,
I give you CNN and ABC, both of whom note that during the relatively short period of time that BUsh has been in office, that
(and also noting that ‘a number’ have not received a hearing, having been seen as ‘too conservative’)
Now, if anything should be learned from the past 20 years or so of American politics, it is that on a general basis, neither party’s extreme is a favored position by the great majority of people nationally. So, nominating judges who more closely align to the extremes vs. the moderates should see their nominations squashed.
december, do you have the slightest idea what “slandering” is? It does not mean “saying unkind things about another person.” To qualify as slander, the statement must be false. And I assure you, based on personal knowledge, that nothing of what Senator Leahy said is false.
Good for you. Now demonstrate that your position is correct. Look up the Congressional Record and the archives of several news organizations. Find the comments of GOP Senators after the votes on Sotomayor, Moreno, Kagan, etc. Quote them here as evidence that your position is correct.
Cause otherwise, all we have to go on in support of your position is your, for want of a better word, “credibility.”
Apparently the term “liberal activist” isn’t slander, since the good Senators Hatch, Ashcroft and others certainly wouldn’t ‘slander’ judicial appointees.
According to this same piece, the judicial stonewalling started mostly with the REp take over of the Senate during Clinton’s term.
On NPR’s All Things Considered news show today, a GOP senator was quoted as being outraged that the rejected judge had a “fully qualified” rating from the American Bar Association. Never before, he said, had a nominee with that rating been denied. Not true, said the news show. Ten Clinton nominees with that rating were denied, many without a hearing. The current Senate has approved more judges so far for G.W. Bush than were approved during the same period for W.J. Clinton. When Clinton left office, 100 federal benches were left empty due to Republican foot-dragging.
<<I fail to see why “soft on crime” is less of a slander than “extremism”. >>
“Extremists” are what we call the kind of people who bombed the Federal Building in Oklamoha City. “Racists” are despicable people, like David Duke. One single racist statement has cost some public figures their jobs. (E.g. Fuzzy Zoeller lost his sponsorship of some product or other.)
Minty, I will defer to your legal knowledge about the legal meaning of “slander.” (About all I know is that libel is written and slander is spoken.
However, I do know that accusing someone of extremism or racism makes him or her a bad person, not just a bad judge.
And wring, I’ll endorse your possibly sarcastic comment. If you were the focus of a TV news story, which would be worse? If you were called a “racist” or if you were called a “liberal activist”?
minty, after reading your first post I recalled that you live in Texas (Dallas IIRC) I am eager to find out what you know about Judge Owen. Perhaps you have met her or appeared before her.
december- in your OP, you claimed that for the judge to be called a “conservative extremist” was slander, likening it to the McCarthy hearings. I’ve demonstrated that the self same Senators bemoaning this judge’s fate, called another judge a “liberal extremist”. IOW exactly the same sort of thing.
the phrase “tarred as a racist” is yours, ie your assesment of Pickering’s fate.
So, we’ve demonstrated that the conservative Rep Senators used the same sort of language, and delayed/denied at least as many nominations. Yet you’ve not retracted your “have you no sense of decency” OP.
Seems you only see the ‘crime’ when it’s on the other side.
<<december- in your OP, you claimed that for the judge to be called a “conservative extremist” was slander, likening it to the McCarthy hearings. >>
I don’t think that’s what the OP said. Anyhow it’s not what I meant. I meant that calling these nominees “extremist” or “racist” is comparable to Joseph McCarthy’s conduct.
We debated the Pickering business some time ago. Senate Democrats did make him out to be a racist, whether or not they used that precise word. And, that theme was picked up and amplified by some in the media, including the New York Times. It was a shameful performance.
