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Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back Into the Nomination Water 9/28/2005 The filibuster sharks are circling Supreme Court nominee Fill-in-the-Blank. Showtime’s approaching. The Senate will vote September 29 at 11:30 a.m. on the confirmation of Judge John G. Roberts as the next Chief Justice of the United States. Roberts will be confirmed by 60+ votes. The Mother of All Supreme Hysteria will follow this when President Bush announces his choice to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Get set for “Revenge of the Filibuster Nerds, Part II.” Unless the President names Al Gore or Babs Streisand to the high Court, judicial filibuster number 30 or 40-something begins, but who’s counting. The left, in and out of the Senate, will unleash attacks that will leave you thinking Bin Laden’s been wacked and they’re writing his eulogy.
The old adage comes to mind about the proof is in the pudding, or pudding heads, depending on your view of the “Great Compromise” concocted by the “Gang of 14” a few months ago. It’s been billed as the cure-all, end-all to take judicial filibustering off the table and restore “civility” to the “greatest deliberative body in world history.”
Have you heard some of them lately? “Hey, hi judge, how are ya, man”? I thought I’d hit the remote accidentally and landed on American Idol. It was Sen. Joe (“I wrote this, didn’t I?”) Biden (D-Delaware) showing his warm and fuzzy side during the Roberts’ hearing. Or how about Sen. Dianne (“Give Me Roe or You Don’t Go”) Feinstein (D-California) who said she rejected Roberts because “I’m the only woman on the committee. When I started, I said that would be my bar, and he didn’t cross my bar.” Then there’s this one from Sen. Harry (“I know it’s not my great intellect”) Reid (D-Nevada), “I can’t vote for him because I’m not sure his heart’s as big as his head.”
This is the result of “deliberative” thinking? I need a wireless keyboard so I can keep typing while rolling on the floor. But I digress.
The “compromise,” otherwise known as “Snake Oil for Simpletons,” is about to unravel. It allowed three nominees to circuit courts of appeals, Judges Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen and William Pryor, to slide through to confirmation by a majority vote after Democrats had filibustered each of them several times. Other outstanding nominees, such as Judge Henry Saad, were cut out of the deal and left in the filibuster crosshairs, as were Supreme Court nominees.
Seven Republicans undercut their President and their Majority Leader, Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) who was about to seek a Senate rule change, known as the constitutional option, which would have stopped judicial filibustering permanently. The Senate would have been back to its historical roots of confirming nominees with a simple majority vote of 51, rather than needing 60 votes to stop a filibuster before proceeding to an up-or-down vote on the nominee.
The Democrats were more than willing to give up three circuit court nominations in exchange for keeping the only weapon that gives them any chance of winning the Supreme Court battle. The seven Republicans gave up the golden opportunity to assure confirmation of the President’s Supreme Court nominees by a simple majority vote. The compromise didn’t end the filibuster battle—it simply delayed it until the most inopportune time.
The “Gang” tied-up their compromise with knots Houdini’s poodle could undo. It 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.”
Democrats filibustered Brown, Owen, Pryor and others, calling them “extreme,” “out-of-the mainstream,” “radical,” “kooks” and “Neanderthals.” Get my drift?
Judge Roberts will be confirmed by more than a simple majority vote so that Democrats who vote for him show how “reasonable” they are when they lead the attack and filibuster of the next nominee. They’ve fired their warning shots across the President’s bow by threatening to filibuster anyone “to the right of O’Connor,” and they’ve mentioned Judge Brown by name.
And who’s there loading enemy guns? Sen. Arlen (“You Can Count on Me When I Need You”) Specter (R-Pennsylvania). Specter says he told the President to ask O’Connor to stay on the Court until the end of June 2006 but the President was “noncommital.”
I bet he’d agree to have Arlen committed.
Judge Brown would be an outstanding Supreme Court Justice. The Democrats allowed her confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, but that makes no difference to them when it comes to attacking her again. “Putting a nominee on a circuit court doesn’t mean they’re qualified for the Supreme Court,” they feebly argue.
Take for example, Feinstein and Biden. Both voted to confirm Judge Roberts to the D.C. Circuit Court in 2003, yet both voted against him after his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Did they focus on his opinions while on the D.C. Circuit the past two years? Of course, not. They rehashed everything they knew before they confirmed him in 2003.
Democrats filibustered Brown numerous times while making scurrilous and baseless attacks against her record, character, integrity, temperament and competence, and then suddenly found her acceptable to escape the filibuster net, which they knew would open the door to her inevitable confirmation.
It proves two things. Their attacks and abuse of the filibuster were a malicious sham to begin with. As a result, they have zero credibility when it comes to opposing any nominee. The American people are too smart for it and aren’t going to tolerate it.
When the R side of the "Gang" joined in the compromise, it implied that their President might nominate someone who would justify a filibuster, despite his record of picking only outstanding, well-qualified judicial nominees. They must lead the anti-filibuster defense of the President’s next Supreme Court nominee if they hope to repent for their insult to the President and the majority of Americans who support his nomination authority.
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