Filibuster or Bust

[SmarterThanYou]

Not exactly true. Here's some data:

http://dalythoughts.com/index.php?p=2983

that data is for circuit appelate courts only it seems.

 

[Annie]

that data is for circuit appelate courts only it seems.

Ok and you were looking for what?

 

[SmarterThanYou]

Ok and you were looking for what?

I was referring to all federal judges as a whole when I stated my numbers.

 

[Annie]

I was referring to all federal judges as a whole when I stated my numbers.

Well here's another, but it really seems that your stats are not holding up. Do you have a better source than what I am finding?

http://www.usdoj.gov/olp/judicialnominations.htm

 

[SmarterThanYou]

the statements of sen leahy only at this point. If need be, i'll research other information online and present them later.

http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200411/112304a.html

 

[Annie]

the statements of sen leahy only at this point. If need be, i'll research other information online and present them later.

http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200411/112304a.html

http://leahy.senate.gov/issues/nominations/cover040104c.htm
Might be worth your time.

Seems to be backing up the other information. No doubt, the confirmation process began to become very politicized from Reagan on, but what is now happening is having an adverse effect on the judicial system itself.

 

[Annie]

One more:

http://judiciary.senate.gov/nominations.cfm

 

[pegwinn]

If I understand the nuclear option, you declare the other to be out of order and from that point on cannot do the same thing as it officially is now against the rules? If filibuster has been nuked before as asserted in a previous post, how can filibuster be happening now. Just a dumb layman so feel free to use small words.

Personally I would like to see the filibuster enforced. Force the elderly gent from WVA to get up and go at it hour after hour. Make them as a group stop or delay for days on end. Make CSPAN show it. Use the franking priveliges to send mail to the states of the "filis" to remind them of other legislation now on the back burner thanks to Senator XXX. Then, when they physically cannot go on, vote. Let them exhaust themselves in a futile effort and then slap em down. If my fantasy is not possible, please use the same small words as above.

 

[The Rabbi]

Filibuster or Bust
By David Holman
Published 3/17/2005 12:05:36 AM
WASHINGTON -- How desperate are Democratic senators these days? Desperate enough to place old boy Robert Byrd in the front row at a key gathering, and let him carry on as frantic one-man amen chorus in response to the event's speakers. Move over MoveOn.org, hosts of yesterday's rally against the Bush judicial nominations at the Washington Court Hotel in Northwest. None of you guys can shake a fist and shriek like the silver fox from West Virginia.

Many big guns were dragged out to blast from the podium: Minority Leader Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Byrd, Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, Chuck Schumer, and Hillary Clinton. Each in turn denounced potential challenges to their promised filibusters of federal judicial nominees. Buoyed by an enthusiastic crowd still sore about an "unjust war" and the Ohio presidential vote, the senators outlined their vision.

Reid insisted that reports of his desire to shut down the Senate over the judges "couldn't be... further from the truth." He was referring to his Tuesday press conference, where he announced that Democrats would block Senate business if judicial nominees are afforded an up-or-down vote, also known as the "constitutional" or "nuclear" option. Reid told the crowd he would rather act on health care, education, the deficit, and energy policy, but unfortunately he has to confront the president's "arrogance of power."

So he is, in other words, prepared to shut the Senate down. He seemed unconcerned that such a move would hurt the Democrats as it did the Republicans in the winter of 1996. He thinks he can peel off Republicans from the majority. As he told the MoveOn activists, "we cannot win this battle... on our own." He urged them to work on winning over "Republicans of good will."

After Reid, the senators stuck to a fairly basic script: denounce "ideologue" judges "out of the mainstream," profess a newfound respect for the Constitution and 200 years of history, and claim that obstructing duly-elected, majority-representing bodies is a principled defense of the minority.

A couple of the senators preemptively apologized for inconsistency. No, not Byrd, who tried filibustering the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and four times "nuked" filibusters himself. Barbara Boxer admitted that when she was young and foolish, a freshman senator in 1994, she "thought it was a good idea to get rid of the filibuster." She wasn't specific, but she may have had in mind her plea for an up-or-down vote on Clinton's surgeon general nominee, Henry Foster. But she apparently forget similar demands she made as late as 2000.

Dick Durbin must have understood the irony of encouraging obstruction before an organization formed to encourage the Senate to "move on" past impeachment. So he recast MoveOn's history, portraying its beginning as a response to "government focused on petty politics." And now, he said, with People for the American Way's Ralph Neas standing just offstage, monitoring his minions, MoveOn is making "sure the country doesn't sell out to special interest groups."

Even weaker was the Democrats' effort to paint their filibustering as a defense of tradition and history. True, it played well for the crowd and cameras yesterday. But once substance is taken into consideration the strategy fizzles. Bob Byrd can wave his copy of the Constitution and claim it's "under attack," but he can't cite where Article II's "advice and consent" requires a super-majority. "Opponents of the filibuster see no need to rely on Jefferson," among others, Byrd said, even though Thomas Jefferson was in Paris at the time.

more
The American Spectator : Filibuster or Bust

Ah how times have changed!

 

[Baruch Menachem]

Bring out your dead!


Amazing all those names you never see anymore.

I like the handle "Smarterthanyou." I am guessing that one was as sharp as a pebble in a stream bed.