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The Mountain Press
JUDICIAL FILIBUSTERS | |
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Filibusters force moderation and promote compromise
By: JIM ANDERSON June 12, 2005 U.S. Sen. Bill Frist says it's "unprecedented," "dangerous" and "radical" to filibuster against judicial nominees. He claims the Constitution requires "up-or-down" votes. Sweet rhetoric; bad history. The Senate has a rich tradition of delaying tactics (including filibusters), from John Quincy Adams' time to today. In 1968, Lyndon Johnson nominated Abe Fortas as chief justice of the Supreme Court. The nomination was killed by a filibuster - led by Republicans, including Howard Baker Jr., who argued: "On any issue the majority at any given moment is not always right." From 1995 to 2000, more than 60 of former President Bill Clinton's judicial nominations were bottled up in committee by Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch. Never mind "up-or-down." Clinton's nominees got blocked before ever hitting the Senate floor. In 2000, Clinton nominated Richard Paez for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That nomination, too, was attacked in a filibuster - again led by Republicans - including (oops!) Sen. Bill Frist. The claim that "up-or-down" votes are a Constitutional duty is false. The Constitution nowhere requires senators to vote on all nominees nor take action at all. What's so bad about filibusters? They force moderation, promote compromise, and slow down the drumbeat toward lifetime seats for extremist judges (left or right). A majority of Senate votes won't necessarily represent most U.S. citizens. Wyoming, the state with the least number of people, gets two votes, exactly the same as California, even though California has 35 million more people. Sen. Frist and others plot a radical overthrow of a 200-year-old system of checks and balances. By stacking the deck, the party in power seizes absolute one-party rule. In Afghanistan and Iraq, didn't we call that "totalitarianism"? Should the Senate just rubber-stamp every questionable nominee the president tosses over? Or shouldn't senators think and speak for a broader constituency: the American people as a whole? -Jim Anderson is president of the Sevier County Democratic Club. ŠThe Mountain Press 2005 |
'Nuclear option' may be the best way to break the logjam
By: JOE BAKER June 12, 2005 Democratic senators have written the American people out of the Constitution's system for appointing judges. After a majority of Americans voted to elect George W. Bush to appoint their federal judges, a minority of Democratic senators have thwarted the popular vote by filibustering the president's judicial nominees. These Senate Democrats have chosen to play the role of the little boy who takes his ball and goes home if things don't go exactly his way. As a result of the Democratic senators' refusal to consider many of the president's nominees, the Republican leadership must find a way to ensure that the judicial appointees endorsed by the American voters can fill the empty seats in our backlogged judicial system. If Democrats continue to refuse to consider qualified nominees, the "nuclear option" may be the only way to break the logjam. As explained in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, the "nuclear option" is the scary-sounding name for a simple Senate rule change to stop the filibuster of appellate court nominees. Ending a filibuster requires 60 votes - rather than the simple majority of 51 that was sufficient to confirm judges for all of Senate history until this presidency. The idea is that if the Democrats filibuster another nominee, the majority leader would ask for a ruling from the Senate's presiding officer that under Rule XXII only a simple majority vote is needed to end debate on judicial nominations. Assuming 51 members concur, the Senate would then move to an up-or-down floor vote. Changing Senate precedents by majority vote would be nothing new to Senate Democrats, who used the tactic to change Senate rules on filibusters and other delaying tactics when they were the majority party in the 1970s and 1980s. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. -Joe Baker is a Sevierville attorney and active in the Republican Party. ŠThe Mountain Press 2005 |
Republicans change rules to get results they like
By: DENNIS WHALEY June 16, 2005 Thanks for your new series with local Republican and Democratic views on the same issue. It's thought-provoking, to say the least. Regarding filibusters, your Republican columnist, Joe Baker, argues that more Americans voted for George Bush, so President Bush deserves to get his way all the time, especially on new judges. No Senate disagreement should be tolerated. That's bad government. Why not just make him dictator. According to Baker, whatever Bush dreams up equals what the American people want, too. Somebody should tell Joe Baker that in 2000 more United States citizens voted for Al Gore than George Bush. So, if more people voted for Gore does that make everything Bush did from 2000 to 2004 illegitimate? In 2000 Bush got 47.9 percent of the popular vote. In 2004, he got 50.8 percent. His average popular vote over both elections, then, was only 49.4 percent. If less than a majority even voted for Bush, what gives him the right to speak for everybody? Who made him dictator? When Republicans don't like the results, they change the rules. Tom DeLay got in trouble, so they changed the ethics rules. We invaded Iraq for WMD, but found nothing, so they changed the rules and today we invaded Iraq to build a democracy. A handful of judges can't get approved, so they threaten to change the rules. It's not fair or right. Republican Joe Baker said what's good for the goose is good for the gander. He's wrong. While George Bush ganders, the people of the United States and Iraq are getting goosed bad. Dennis Dean Whaley --Sevierville ŠThe Mountain Press 2005 |
Reader says columns were thought provoking
By: DARRELL WHITCHURCH June 20, 2005 Many on the right seem to have forgotten the idea of moderation in all things. A 60-vote mandate for judges forces moderation on the temporary holders of the majority - works for both sides. A federal judge is installed for life to serve all of us, not just to serve the constituency that got him or her the nomination. Sen. Frist needs to remember his party will one day return to the wilderness of the minority. Won't he want moderate judges then instead of flaming liberal appointees? I would bet serious money that when the shoe is on the other foot, he and his cohorts will suddenly see the wisdom of moderation and filibuster. Remember their party blocked 60 Clinton judge nominees just a few years ago when they were in the minority. People should do due diligence on these six nominees: Judges who don't believe in child labor laws, judges who think FDR was a socialist, judges who feel that because Social Security was not listed in the original Constitution it is unconstitutional, judges who believe labor has no rights when dealing with management, judges who want to return to coat-hanger abortions. These are not mainstream, middle-of- the-road candidates for these important lifetime offices. -Darrell Whitchurch--Gatlinburg ŠThe Mountain Press 2005 |