CWA Says, Seven Republican Dwarves Sold Out Snow White—Left Democrats With Key to Castle     5/24/2005

Washington, D.C. – Last night seven Republican senators cut a foolish deal with seven Democrats that left Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) holding an empty hand. Frist announced yesterday that he had scheduled a cloture vote today on Priscilla Owen, the President’s nominee to the Fifth Circuit, who’s been waiting for a floor vote for more than four years. If the cloture vote failed, Frist planned to use the constitutional option—a ruling from the Senate president, Vice President Dick Cheney, that only 51 votes are necessary to confirm a nominee.

“Instead of ending the unconstitutional use of the filibuster, the seven dwarves have handed the filibuster key to the Supreme Court Castle to the Democrats. It’s the key they want more than anything,” said Jan LaRue, Concerned Women for America’s (CWA’s) chief counsel. “They’re willing to vote for cloture on the three nominees they’ve most opposed in order to keep the filibuster for all future nominees, including the Supreme Court.”

The seven Republicans are John McCain (Arizona), John Warner (Virginia), Mike DeWine (Ohio), Lindsay Graham (South Carolina), Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Lincoln Chaffee (Rhode Island).

“The deal says, ‘Nominees should only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances, and each signatory must use his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist.’ The Republicans say that after the Democrats allow confirmation of Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and Bill Pryor, they won’t be able to call a nominee ‘extraordinary.’ Does the name ‘Charles Pickering’ ring a bell? Democrats unanimously confirmed him to the district court and then filibustered him as a racist when he was nominated to the Fifth Circuit,” LaRue added.

“Sen. Frist said the compromise is ‘short on principle’ because every nominee deserves an up-or-down vote. He’s right. It was like watching a parallel universe: Seven giddy Republicans talking mutual trust with Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia), while Harry Reid (D-Nevada) continues attacking the President and bragging about saving the Supreme Court from the radical right. The American people won’t take this lying down,” LaRue concluded.

For Information Contact:
Demi Bardsley
(202) 488-7000, ext. 1020
media.cwfa.org

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