Filibustering let loose

Lets examine a few things here,ok.

Number one,the constitution says that congress MUST advise and consent to judicial nominees.

By threatening to filibuster,the dems are not allowing the Senate to do its constitutionally mandated job.
There is nothing that says HOW the Senate must vote,only that they must vote.

There has NEVER been a filibuster of nominees once they were voted out of committee.So,why is it being done now.
In 1998,Pat Leahy said on the floor that "ALL nominees deserve to be voted on",and that he would never oppose a flor vote.
Yet,he is doing it now.
That seems a bit hypocritical to me.

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The Republicans used a 'pocket-fillibuster' to block over 60 of Clinton's Judges, if you want to talk about Hypocrisy, Mysteryman. Then once they were in the majority, they changed the rules so that you couldn't do that anymore.

Cycloptichorn

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Let's look at the Canidates
Let's look at one of the two canidates up for filibuster> Janice Rogers Brown

From this admittedly anti-nomination factsheet

Judicial Temperament

Justice Brown was twice rated not qualified by the California Judicial Nominations Evaluation (JNE) Commission, first in 1993, when then-Governor Wilson submitted her name as one of six potential nominees to the state supreme court and again in 1996 when Wilson, who had appointed her in the interim to a seat on the state court of appeals, nominated her to the state supreme court. The "not qualified" rating was based primarily on Brown's judicial inexperience, and her tendency to interject into legal opinions her political and philosophical views. 1Specifically, the Commission's report indicated that "nothing in [Brown's] legal experience [distinguished] her from other average practitioners," and some of Brown's opinions contained "gratuitous" personal opinions." 2 The Commission received specific complaints that Brown was careless of established legal precedent, had difficulty grasping complex litigation, lacked compassion and intolerance for opposing views, misunderstood legal standards, and was slow to produce opinions.

We can surely find right wing judges with less baggage than this.

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Let's look at Canidate Two: Priscilla Owen
From admittedly anti-nomination group...

Alliance for Justice/IndependentJudiciary.com

General Information.
Anchoring the far-right end of a very conservative court, Priscilla Owen consistently supports big business and special interests against the claims of ordinary Americans. Before joining the court, Owen was a partner at the Houston firm Andrews & Kurth, where she represented primarily large corporations, including oil and pipeline interests. On the Texas Supreme Court, she has tended to distort or rewrite the law to reach desired results, voting consistently to dismiss the claims of injured workers and consumers and citizens wishing to protect the environment. In addition, prior to her nomination to the Fifth Circuit, she never voted to grant a minor a judicial bypass under Texas' Parental Notification Statute. The Houston Chronicle wrote that her "interpretations [in these cases] were generally stricter and more conservative than the majority of her all-Republican colleagues" on the court. Indeed, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, then a fellow Justice, called one of her dissents in a bypass case "an unconscionable act of judicial activism."1

Owen is also notoriously slow at issuing opinions and has reportedly had cases taken away from her because of her backlog.

Wow! Even Gonzales thinks she's a big time activist judge. I thought we conservatives didn't like them.

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like i said before, if the dems, via their job of representing the half of the country that voted against continuance of the bush agendas, are labeled obstructionists, fine... obstruct away.

what is so darned hard to understand about that ?

if i/we wanted to do everything that bush wants, i/we would have voted for him. right? but i/we didn't.

but the gop leadership's attitude seems to be that 48% +/- of americans are "out of the mainstream". what crap. that routine is just political buzz phrasing used to paint the opposing view as some wayout, fringe element. so half of the country is "the fringe" ?

what an astoundingly arrogant point of view.

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I agree. It is the Dems in Congress' right to do this, and they are doing it in order to support their views.

Those of you waiting for a Nuclear Option trigger, I'm starting to think that it's not going to happen at all. There's no reason it wouldn't have already happened if they had the votes. And the more time that goes on, the more the public moves away from supporting them...

Cycloptichorn

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er... "constitutional" option. Not nuclear option.

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mysteryman wrote:

Lets examine a few things here,ok.

Number one,the constitution says that congress MUST advise and consent to judicial nominees.

By threatening to filibuster,the dems are not allowing the Senate to do its constitutionally mandated job.
There is nothing that says HOW the Senate must vote,only that they must vote.

Well, there's nothing in the constitution that says how the senate must advise and consent either. If the senate rules allow filibusters, then the fact that the senate is stalled due to a filibuster is as much an expression of the senate's advice as any vote.

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McGentrix wrote:

er... "constitutional" option. Not nuclear option.

Parroting the administration line. Good for you, McG, you get a cookie.

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Quote:

er... "constitutional" option. Not nuclear option.

bullsh!t. Your party invented that term, and we're damn well going to use it.

We're going to keep saying Privatization and Private accounts as well. As Reid said the other day, 'Republicans invented those terms, and they are going to wear them around their necks like a noose 'till doomsday.'

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:
er... "constitutional" option. Not nuclear option.

bullsh!t. Your party invented that term, and we're damn well going to use it.

We're going to keep saying Privatization and Private accounts as well. As Reid said the other day, 'Republicans invented those terms, and they are going to wear them around their necks like a noose 'till doomsday.'

or an albatross...

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Judicial Confirmation Statistics

This clearly shows many of the "facts" liberals have been using about judicial nominations are clearly false.

Please read through this and ask yourself why this has come to a head as it has.

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The charts you are looking at are using 'Court of Appeals' judges only, and not Federal Judges as a whole, in order to heighten the case against what the Dems are doing.

If you look at judges as a whole, and not a very strict sampling of them, you'll find that the vast, vast majority of Bush's appointees have been confirmed, and a larger majority than Clinton's.

This is somewhat disappointing coming from you, McG; a child could have seen this.

Cycloptichorn

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Look how the confirmation percentages keep getting lower as we move forward in time:

Carter............91.8%
Reagan..........78.6%
G.H.W. Bush...77.8%
Clinton...........71.4%
G.W. Bush......52.2%

I think that's about how things are getting more divided and more partisan. That goes both ways. I think Carter was more likely to nominate less partisan judges than Reagan or Bush I, certainly than Bush II. But also, I think support or opposition became more and more likely to split along party lines.

That's a great link, thanks. What "facts" are you talking about, though? That Clinton had a lower confirmation percentage than Bush I or Reagan, for example?

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Which "facts" are shown false?

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One that comes immediately to mind is that Bush has only had 10 nominations thwarted.

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Care to discuss the glaring problem I pointed out with your 'fact sheet?'

Cycloptichorn

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Who said Bush has had only 10 nominations thwarted?

Not saying it didn't happen, but I just skimmed this whole thread and didn't notice it, and it's hard to search for.

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Well, it's one of the first comments on the link that he posted, so McG is arguing the argument that he WISHES we were talking about b/c that's what his link TOLD him to argue.

Sad, really.

Cycloptichorn

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sozobe wrote:

Carter............91.8%
Reagan..........78.6%
G.H.W. Bush...77.8%
Clinton...........71.4%
G.W. Bush......52.2%

This is a bit misleading since many Clinton nominees never got a hearing. Another quote for you from the Alliance for Justice.

Quote:

During the 1990s, the Republican-led Senate refused to consider President Clinton's nominations of highly qualified, well-respected persons to the court. No Sixth Circuit nominees received hearings during the last three years of President Clinton's term. Two nominees from Michigan, Helene White and Kathleen McCree Lewis, were left languishing by the Senate because they initially did not have support from one home state Senator, Republican Spencer Abraham. When Senator Abraham returned a positive blue slip in October 2000, Senator Hatch stated that it was too late in the year to hold hearings on judicial nominees. White set the record for longest wait without a hearing: more than four years. Another nominee, Kent Markus of Ohio, never received a hearing even though his two Senators, Republicans Mike DeWine and George Voinovich, supported him. Markus testified to the Judiciary Committee that "Senator DeWine and his staff and Senator Hatch's staff . . . told me two things: 1) There will be no more confirmations to the 6th Circuit during the Clinton Administration, and 2) This has nothing to do with you; don't take it personally - it doesn't matter who the nominee is, what credentials they may have or what support they may have - see item number 1."

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Filibustering let loose

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