Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to The New Coffee Room. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
The One Man Filibuster, Republican-Style
Topic Started: Dec 18 2006, 11:16 PM (105 Views)
QuirtEvans
Member Avatar
I Owe It All To John D'Oh
With all the screaming about how judicial nominees deserve an up-or-down vote, apparently the Republicans aren't all that picky about allowing a single Senator to block a nominee. It's a time-honored practice .... much like the filibuster.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/washingt...artner=homepage

So, if 40 Democrats want to block a vote on a nominee, that's baaaad. But if one conservative Republican Senator wants to block a nominee, well OK then.

Can you say "hypocritical"? Sure you can.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Daniel\
Member Avatar
Fulla-Carp
Blacklist her for associating with known homosexuals!

I can think of another word I can say... biiiigot.

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ivorythumper
Member Avatar
I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
You don't have to attempt to impute hypocrisy to this (which I always find an amusing charge by liberals against conservatives and never vice versa-- for obvious reasons).

It was a dumb move by Brownback on several accounts, the most obvious being the clumsy attempt to impose a condition on what sorts of cases a judge could hear.

I know next to nothing about how the judiciary committee works, so please explain how can one senator in the minority party block the workings of a whole committee?
The dogma lives loudly within me.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ivorythumper
Member Avatar
I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Daniel
Dec 19 2006, 12:28 AM
Blacklist her for associating with known homosexuals!

I can think of another word I can say... biiiigot.

No Dan, it was not blacklisting for "associating with known homosexuals". Read the article again. You can still get a B+.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Daniel\
Member Avatar
Fulla-Carp
Mr. Brownback said that he believed Judge Neff’s attendance at the 2002 ceremony merited further investigation, but that he had not meant to set any precedent with his proposal. “It was the last day of the session and I was just trying to provide some accommodation to see if we could make this thing go forward,” he said.

I'm changing my answer. Stupid bigot!

Besides which, the day you take me to school will be the day hell freezes over.

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ivorythumper
Member Avatar
I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
I think the relevance has to do with the judge's material participation in a ceremony that deliberately violated the law of the land. At the time, same sex unions were not permissible in the State. Her defense was she was a guest and not the officiating jurist, but it does suggest a lack of prudence for a judge to be taking what could easily be seen as activist positions. It has nothing to do with "associating with known homosexuals".
The dogma lives loudly within me.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Daniel\
Member Avatar
Fulla-Carp
There is no such thing as "material participation in a ceremony that deliberately violated the law of the land." Commitment ceremonies are not a violation of law. Even the conservative Harvard scholar said it was a matter of private association.

"Charles Fried, a Harvard Law School professor and leading conservative scholar, said Mr. Brownback’s actions were improper. “First of all, people go to parties for all sorts of reasons,” Professor Fried said, and how one would rule on a case should not be inferred from that private activity."

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
QuirtEvans
Member Avatar
I Owe It All To John D'Oh
ivorythumper
Dec 19 2006, 02:40 AM
You don't have to attempt to impute hypocrisy to this (which I always find an amusing charge by liberals against conservatives and never vice versa-- for obvious reasons).

It was a dumb move by Brownback on several accounts, the most obvious being the clumsy attempt to impose a condition on what sorts of cases a judge could hear.

I know next to nothing about how the judiciary committee works, so please explain how can one senator in the minority party block the workings of a whole committee?

It's a traditional Senatorial prerogative. A single Senator historically has been allowed to place an anonymous hold on the nomination (although, in this case, Brownback's hold became public). If the Senator is from the judge's home state, it can be a Senator of either party, and it doesn't have to be a Senator on the Judiciary Committee, I don't think. I don't think it's actually part of the rules; I think that it's just a "gentleman's rule" and that the Majority Leader refuses to schedule a vote when a single member of his party, or a Senator from the judge's home state, has placed a hold on the nomination.

I doubt the Republicans would respect the prerogative if a Dem put a hold on a nominee, as witnessed by their filibuster threat.

And, as this shows, it doesn't have to be the Senator from the judge's home state. I don't think that Brownback and Neff are from the same state.

Here what Feinstein said about the practice of anonymous holds:

Quote:
 
Recent Republican practices using anonymous holds allowing a single Senator, not 41, to prevent a hearing or a vote on a judicial nominee, in effect, has created a filibuster of one. All told, during the last administration [the Clinton Administration], more than 60 judicial nominees suffered this fate.


http://feinstein.senate.gov/05speeches/cr-...ial-nom0510.htm

As an example, the Republicans used the tactic of an anonymous hold in 1998 to block the consideration of the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor. And in 1999, when Bob Smith, a Republican, put an anonymous hold on the nomination of Richard Paez for several months.

And would you like to hear how Smith defended his action:

Quote:
 
"Don't pontificate on the floor of the Senate and tell me that somehow I am violating the Constitution of the United States of America by blocking a judge or filibustering a judge that I don't think deserves to be on the circuit court ... . That is my responsibility. That is my advice and consent role, and I intend to exercise it."


It's far, far worse than the filibuster, because it allows a single Senator, not a group of 41, to prevent the Senate from voting up or down on a nomination.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
JBryan
Member Avatar
I am the grey one
Quote:
 
I doubt the Republicans would respect the prerogative if a Dem put a hold on a nominee, as witnessed by their filibuster threat.


Actually, they have when Carl Levin did the same thing to a judicial appointee. I believe he finally lifted it when he got whatever it was he was trying to extort from the Administration. I'm a little sketchy on the details as this happened a couple of years ago.

Sam Brownback is considering a run for President as a social conservative. he is probably trying to burnish his credentials but making a jackass out of himself in the process.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ivorythumper
Member Avatar
I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
The key point is that jurists must be above reproach, and not subject to suspicions of engaging in activist positions.

If a jurist attended a Right to Life banquet as a guest, even if they had never adjudicated an abortion case or written about it, would that not be fodder for their opponents in a confirmation hearing?

We should want all of our jurist to be, above all, impartial, which is the only way that justice can be served and the judiciary enjoy the reputation for integrity necessary to ensure the public trust. I realize that is asking perhaps too much of many people, but I see nothing wrong with that principle.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
George K
Member Avatar
Finally
JBryan
Dec 19 2006, 07:48 AM
Actually, they have when Carl Levin did the same thing to a judicial appointee. I believe he finally lifted it when he got whatever it was he was trying to extort from the Administration. I'm a little sketchy on the details as this happened a couple of years ago.

Here's something a bit more recent.

(it's a two man filibuster)

St. Louis — Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow have placed holds on the nominations of two federal judges in Michigan in the aftermath of a Kansas senator’s move to block the appointment of a third judge because of her appearance at a lesbian commitment ceremony.

Levin confirmed Friday that he and Stabenow put holds on the nominations of Grand Rapids lawyer Robert Jonker and Berrien County Circuit Judge Paul Maloney to the U.S. District Court in Michigan’s Western District.
=-=-=-=-==-=

And back in 2003... the same two did something similar:

Acting in concert, Michigan Democratic Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow told the Judiciary Committee they will block the nominations of Richard Griffin, David McKeague, Susan Bieke Neilson, and Henry Saad to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. In addition, Levin and Stabenow said they will block the nomination of Thomas Ludington to a seat on the U.S. District Court. That means the two senators are attempting to kill every Bush nominee from the state of Michigan.

Levin and Stabenow stopped the nominations by returning negative blue slips, which are the documents in which senators indicate approval or disapproval of judicial nominees from their home states.

Blue slips are a Senate custom with a long and controversial history, but both parties concede it is nearly impossible for a nominee of either party to win confirmation over the objections of both of his or her home-state senators. That means the nominations of Griffin, McKeague, Neilson, Saad, and Ludington are effectively dead.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
QuirtEvans
Member Avatar
I Owe It All To John D'Oh
As I said, home state.

I don't recall that the state of Kansas extends up to the shores of Lake Superior, but perhaps they're trying to annex the stuff in between.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
DealsFor.me - The best sales, coupons, and discounts for you
« Previous Topic · The New Coffee Room · Next Topic »
Add Reply