As I understand it, Senate Repubs are set to use the nuclear option to close off the Dems ability to filibuster to block the more odious judicial nominees coming from the White House. But I can’t buy the notion that the real issue is as stated, because the whole debate appears to be over just NINE judicial nominees.
Now, back when Reagan and Clinton were president, the opposing party in Congress blocked HUGE numbers of judicial nominees from the White House – sixty or forty percent. But the Dems, even back when they were more powerful during Bush’s first term, have pretty much given Bush what he wants in terms of nominees, letting through all but about … nine … of them.
So, what’s the big deal here? Why are Pubbies ready to change the way the Senate is run (which might work very muich to their disfavor some day) over these paltry few nominees? And why are the Dems opposing them so strongly? Hell, even if they’re disgusting ogres that would make Scalia and Thomas look light fonts of light and reason, they’re not Supreme Court nomineess (though they are POTENTIAL Supreme Court nominees). Why don’t the Dems just let them through, given that they’ve let a lot of other right wing assholes through already?
Isnt’ this debate as presently constituted strictly a matter of whether or not the Pubbies have the Dems panties pulled down around their heels vs. their ankles?
I have to believe there’s something nastier and uglier in the background that’s fuelling the fight. But I’m not sure what it is. A guy on the Daily Show was saying that the current fight over nominees was about free speech – that the Pubbies would be able ot put anti-free speech zealots in the Supreme Court and gain even more control over the public discourse than they have now. Is that it? Seems like a bit of a stretch. But Rove is such a nasty piece of shit I’d believe him capable of anything.
The REAL issue will come up when Bush gets to nominate a Supreme Court justice. He will want another Scalia/Thomas type justice and the Dems won’t have that.
The problem you are having is you want to cast this as a battle between the “evil” Republicans and the “good” Democrats. That requires some kind of nefarious conspiracy to be at the bottom of this morality play. What you don’t get is that there are different, legitimate schools of thought on how SC justices should interpret the constitution, and these schools of thought (eg, Textualism or Originalism) are not evil. You are never going to get a sensible debate until you understand that.
Well, maybe. In living memory, I’ve heard it argued that the Federal has no Constitutional right to enforce equality of education and civil rights on the unwilling State. If the Constitution is used to support injustice, it is misapplied, regardless of how the Constitution is worded, or the benign intent of its misinterpreters.
Are you claiming that Pickering, who said that Christians ought to base their decision making on the Bible, uses either way to interpret the constitution? Because they are two different texts.
BTW, bush only renominated 7 of the 10 most controversial nominees.
There are reasonable people on both sides of the strict constructionalist vs. loose constructionalist fence. I think a good court would have a mixture of the two views. To me, it seems petty to quibble over a small minority of judges that aren’t getting to a vote. When the shoe was on the other foot, the Republicans had no problem with using the filibuster to railroad judges too far on the left side of the fence. And many of those now campaigning against the filibuster as if Satan himself had originated it have voted against cloture themselves in the past. I think the filibuster has served us well, keeping the courts from swinging wildly to the left when a liberal is in the White House and from swinging wildly to the right when conservatives are in power.
The real issue is that the religious right is starting to expect some return on their faithful Republican voting. In order to placate that part of the constituency, some of the nominees have been radical right wingers. Rather than accept that they can only go so far, Rove and his minions find it politically expedient to demonize the process. You can only keep up fervor so long as you have an enemy, and right now the Republicans find the judiciary and the filibuster to be convenient whipping boys.
Well, trouble is, there aren’t any liberal and/or center left judges who are qualified for these positions. Damndest thing, all those lefty colleges and law schools, and not one worthwhile candidate. All this debate about constitutional issues, you would think there’d be some, now wouldn’t you? But, nope, try as they might, the Bushiviks couldn’t find any such candidates. Of course, these are reasonable men, amenable to negotiation and compromise. But they just couldn’t find any!
Absurd. Of course there are plenty of well-qualfied center-left and/or liberal people well-qualified to be appointed to these positions.
The Bush administration simply didn’t try to find them… and why should they? They are not the sort of jurists Mr. Bush wants on the bench. And as president, it’s his privilege to appoint people he wants; there’s no rule that says he has to balance out his appointments. When Clinton and Carter, respectively, were in the White House, they didn’t appoint center-right, conservative jurists for balance’s sake.
Arguably, Bush 41 appointed a center-left / liberal jurist in the person of David Souter.
Truthfully, I suspect that was simply a mistake. I’m confident that the then-Bush administration hoped for Souter to be a much more right-leaning guy, and they were disappointed in how he’s acted since getting the job.
In fairness to the Republicans, I don’t believe they have used the filibuster against judicial nominations in recent memory, except in the case of Johnson’s nomination to elevate Abe Fortas to Chief Justice. On the other hand, they used a lot of other parliamentary tactics, both when in the majority and minority, to block Clinton nominees. I believe many of these tactics have already been eliminated (I seem to recal the words “blue slip”), leaving the filibuster as the only option for the minority party.
Anyone notice, BTW, that the Republicans are now using the words “constitutional option,” rather than “nuclear option,” and claiming the latter language is a usage exclusive to the “liberal media,” even though the term was coined by Trent Lott? Framing the debate is one thing, but simply lying about the source of language in order to score political points makes me cringe.
The Republicans want to deal with ditching the filibuster now, so that when a Supreme Court vacancy finally comes up, they can install some far-right, rubber-stamp thug like Clarence Thomas without any trouble.
Saving this battle for later would make it too-too obvious that simply installing another SC thug is what they are after, when they are trying to ditch the filibuster … But if they can get away with it now, by the time a vacancy comes up on the SC, the average person can be made to forget that there ever was such a thing as a filibuster.
Let’s see the actual qoute and what relavence it has to constitutional interpretation.
And those arguing it would, in general*, be wrong. Just as those folks today are wrong who argue that the constitution allows AA in the form of racial preferences.
*In general, since “civil rights” is too vague a term to put a blanket endorsement on. Had you said “Jim Crow laws and Seperate but Equal”, I would have agreed with you w/o qualification.
Are you saying the Dems will just roll over if Bush nominates someone like Scalia to replace Rehnquist? I know what you’re getting at, and there is a certain logic to it, but you’re still wrong. There’s going to be a big fight for each justice.
You seem to forget that the Dems have just as much desire to pack the court with their guys as do the Pubs. That’s the flaw in your reasoning.
Not at all. The Senate’s role is to advise and consent, which is why the Senate must approve his appointees.
What does that have to do with the reply I offered? You expressed surprise that the Bush administration hadn’t found any center-left candidates; I pointed out that they weren’t looking for any.
Do you mean naming Scalia as chief justice? All the chief justice is, is a glorified organizer. He has no more power than any other justice. I don’t see a fight over that at all.
Their will be a fight over the justice named to replace Rehnquist but no where near what it will be over the second one should there be one.
Nitpick: According to this link – http://www.cookpolitical.com/column/2004/121804.php – a total of 62 Clinton judicial nominees (not 62% of the total) were blocked by Senate Republicans – blocked by never being reported out of the Judiciary Committee, presumably during periods when the Pubs had a Senate majority. IIRC, no Clinton nominees were reported out for a confirmation vote of the whole Senate but then blocked on the floor by filibuster.
OK, the last three are being blocked by (not entirely unreasonable) partisan grudges. But, on the whole, however you might feel about these judges’ views, is it worth changing the Senate rules (a change that will last indefinitely, i.e., into the next Democratic administration) to seat them on the bench? Does this warrant use of the “nuclear option”? The federal judiciary system won’t grind to a halt for lack of seven judges, will it?