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adorkablex
04-24-2005, 01:21 PM
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) is considering the radical elimination of the 200-year-old filibuster in order to pave an easy path for controversial nominees to the Supreme Court. Frist’s effort is called the “nuclear option,” and there are some Republicans who may think it goes too far. Tell these Senators you think it does. Sign the petition now at
http://pfaw.kintera.org/SaveTheFilibuster.


Sen. Richard Shelby (Alabama)
Sen. Ted Stevens and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
Sen. John McCain (Arizona)
Sen. Richard Lugar (Indiana)
Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa)
Sen. Pat Roberts (Kansas)
Sen. Jim Bunning and Sen. Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)
Sen. Olympia Snowe and Sen. Susan Collins (Maine)
Sen. Thad Cochran (Mississippi)
Sen. Chuck Hagel (Nebraska)
Sen. Judd Gregg and Sen. John Sununu (New Hampshire)
Sen. Pete Domenici (New Mexico)
Sen. Mike DeWine and Sen. George Voinovich (Ohio)
Sen. Gordon Smith (Oregon)
Sen. Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania)
Sen. Lincoln Chafee (Rhode Island)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (South Carolina)
Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tennessee)
Sen. John Warner (Virginia) :cool:

stresseater
04-24-2005, 06:39 PM
This WON'T force confirmation. It only forces a vote so that the dems don't hold up the entire process ANOTHER 4 years. I think it is a good thing. :D

schsa
04-25-2005, 04:48 AM
They can talk all they want about ending the filabuster process but it won't happen. It's part of how government works.

Jolie Rouge
05-16-2005, 05:49 PM
Reid Says Showdown Imminent in Senate
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent
Mon May 16, 6:21 PM ET



WASHINGTON - Democratic Leader Harry Reid declared an end Monday to compromise talks with Republican leaders over President Bush's controversial judicial nominees, saying their fate along with the future of long-standing filibuster rules will be settled in a showdown on the Senate floor. "I've tried to compromise and they want all or nothing, and I can't do that," Reid told reporters after a private meeting with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

"The leader's door remains open to Senator Reid," Frist's spokeswoman, Amy Call, said in reply.

With Democrats threatening to block confirmation votes on several of Bush's appeals court nominees, Frist has threatened to change Senate procedures to strip them of their ability to do so. At issue is the filibuster, a parliamentary device that can be defeated only by a majority of 60 votes or higher.

Reid made his comments at the same time a small group of Democrats, who have been meeting with Republicans also eager to avoid a showdown, floated a proposal under which they would clear the way for confirmation of five nominees while scuttling three others.

Under the proposal, circulated in writing, Republicans would have to pledge no change through 2006 in the Senate's rules that allow filibusters against judicial nominees. For their part, Democrats would commit not to block votes on Bush's Supreme Court or appeals court nominees during the same period, except in extreme circumstances.

Officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Democrats involved in the compromise would vote to end any filibuster blocking a final vote on Richard Griffin, David McKeague and Susan Neilson, all named to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Democrats would also clear the way for final votes on William H. Pryor Jr. for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and Janice Rogers Brown for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Both are among the nominees most strongly opposed by organized labor as well as civil rights and abortion rights groups and others that provide political support for the Democratic Party.

Three other nominations would continue to be blocked under the offer: those of Henry Saad to the 6th Circuit Court, Priscilla Owen to the 5th Circuit and William G. Myers III to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Individual Democrats would be free to decide for themselves what constituted an extreme case for future nominees, according to officials familiar with the proposal. At the same time, Republicans would be bound to leave filibuster practices in effect.

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, a Democrat seeking re-election in a Republican state, outlined the suggested compromise for Frist on Sunday night at a dinner at the Tennessee Republican's home. Nelson also has spoken with Reid.

Reid criticized Frist during the day on the judgeship issue, saying that earlier efforts toward compromise had produced little progress. "I think he's trying to satisfy the radical right," he said at a news conference before the two men met privately.

Call, Frist's spokeswoman, said the Tennessee Republican "is going to satisfy the principle of the up-or-down vote, and it's unfortunate that Senator Reid continues with bitter partisan rhetoric as opposed to coming to the table to work this out."

Nelson's spokesman, David DiMartino, declined to confirm the details of the compromise offer. DiMartino declined to say which other Democrats were willing to pledge to support the proposal, but a spokesman for Sen. Mark Pryor, Rodell Mollineaux, said the Arkansas lawmaker was "the No. 2 Democrat on this" effort to compromise.

Democrats successfully blocked 10 of Bush's first-term appeals court nominees, using a filibuster, a parliamentary tactic that erects a 60-vote threshold. Bush has renominated seven of the 10, and Democrats have threatened to block them again.

In response, Frist has threatened to seek a parliamentary ruling to ban filibusters in the cases of appeals court and Supreme Court judges, a test vote that would be settled by simple majority. He has announced plans to begin forcing the issue at midweek by initiating a debate over Owen and Brown.

Republicans hold 55 seats in the Senate, meaning they can afford five defections and still triumph. Already, though, Sen. John McCain and Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island have said they will break ranks. Vote counters on both sides have sad they expect Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine to do likewise.

Several other Republicans are publicly uncommitted, and neither side appears certain it has enough votes to prevail if the issue is put to a vote. At the same time, if six Republicans and six Democrats agree to a compromise of their own, they could impose it on the leadership if necessary, averting a showdown.

Even Republicans who strongly opposed the Democrats' repeated use of filibusters argue that banning such moves would amount to a sweeping change in the way the Senate conducts business. The Senate's uniqueness, they say, stems in part from the rights it preserves for the minority.

As a result, many have expressed hope that a confrontation could be avoided. "I believe that we are skating over very thin ice here with regard to the continuity of life in the Senate as we've known it," Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said over the weekend on CNN. "I'm opposed to trying to eliminate filibusters simply because I think they protect minority rights, whether they're Republicans, Democrats or other people."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050516/ap_on_go_co/filibuster_fight

mesue
05-16-2005, 08:53 PM
OK do some research and you would see that of Clintons judicial nominees republicans rejected 20% of them.
Democrats under Bush has only rejected 3.4% of Bush's most extreme judicial nominees.
The filibuster is a very important part of our governing process this is yet one more attempt to change a process that has stood the test of time.

excuseme
05-17-2005, 02:35 AM
Yep, and yet the hypocrisy of the republican party is outrageous. Maybe we'll be blessed today and have Tom Delay give a speech about morals today.



OK do some research and you would see that of Clintons judicial nominees republicans rejected 20% of them.
Democrats under Bush has only rejected 3.4% of Bush's most extreme judicial nominees.
The filibuster is a very important part of our governing process this is yet one more attempt to change a process that has stood the test of time.

dlwt
05-17-2005, 03:25 AM
OK do some research and you would see that of Clintons judicial nominees republicans rejected 20% of them.
Democrats under Bush has only rejected 3.4% of Bush's most extreme judicial nominees.
The filibuster is a very important part of our governing process this is yet one more attempt to change a process that has stood the test of time.

Amen

Jolie Rouge
05-31-2005, 06:43 PM
The Battle Royal
Emmett Tyrrell

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Drat. The battle royal I predicted last week is off in the U.S. Senate. The battle was to be fought between the Democrats and the Republicans over what conservatives call "the constitutional option" and liberals call "the nuclear option." That it was reported throughout the media as "the nuclear option" is still more evidence that the media are liberal. Obviously, the argument over whether or not the media are liberal is another of America's unnecessary debates.

The argument over whether the president's judicial nominees are "activist" is an unnecessary debate, too. What distinguishes the president's nominees from what in the recent past have been the Democrats' nominees is that the president's nominees pledge that their judgments will be restrained by written law, and the Democrats' nominees make no such pledge. Obviously the judicial nominee who pledges to be restrained by the law cannot possibly be an "activist." The Democrats' nominees can be as "activist" as they want.

The very term "activist" historically was first used in the legal sense to apply to liberal judges, mostly Democrats. So far from judicial restraint have liberal judges wandered that now many take into account not only the Constitution, but also social trends. In fact, the latest fashion among these judges is to take into account international law. Recently, Justice Anthony Kennedy, in his majority opinion abolishing the juvenile death penalty, invoked the "overwhelming weight of international opinion." Now that is activism compounded with cosmopolitanism.

Again, the debate over whether the president's nominees are activists is clearly unnecessary. Another way of putting it is that the debate is dishonest. The real "activist" judges are the liberals. Truth be known, Democrats have usually had no complaint with activist judges. Democrats are so weak in the legislatures of America that they can no longer make law. Consequently, they rely on their activist judges to make law for them. But if the debate over the term activist is unnecessary, this is not to say that the struggle over the president's nominees is unnecessary. This week, the White House and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist blinked during one of the most important political battles of our time. It is a battle to decide who makes the law: legislators or unelected, unaccountable judges.

The White House was feckless in influencing wavering Republicans in the Senate. Sen. Frist was incompetent in allowing seven of his senators to break ranks. Now there is calm in the Senate. There is drift. Yet the storm will come anew. The compromise worked out by Sen. John McCain and seven Democrats cannot possibly hold. According to the compromise, the Democrats say they will filibuster future presidential nominees only for "extraordinary circumstances." Thus all will depend on what the Democrats deem "extraordinary." As we have seen, the Democrats already claim that a judicial nominee pledged to judicial restraint is an "activist." Can people who so willfully twist the meaning of a word be relied upon to abide by the meaning of the word "extraordinary"?

Republicans were hoping to eliminate the judicial filibuster this week so that they could confirm judicial nominees with a simple majority -- 51 votes rather than the 60 votes necessary to shut down a filibuster. They had their eyes not only on the judicial nominees who have been languishing unconfirmed for years because of the Democrats' filibuster threat, but on the Supreme Court openings that are likely to develop this summer. With Chief Justice William Rehnquist's health in doubt, such an opening will probably come before the summer ends. Then does one really think this week's vaunted compromise will hold?

By almost anyone's interpretation a Supreme Court opening can be described as "extraordinary." When the opening occurs, the Senate will be right back to the brink of a battle royal. Little has been gained in this compromise, save perhaps a proper appraisal of Sen. Frist. He is not a leader. The battle royal will come when the president nominates Rehnquist's successor. The Democrats will be even more desperate and their character assassination of the president's nominee will be even more reckless and damaging to the nominee and to the court.

mesue
05-31-2005, 07:09 PM
The republicans are complaining like a bunch of babies about the democrats not passing all of the president's nominees when they themselves did not pass 20% of Clintons appointees the democrats have passed all of Bush's but 3.4% and btw do you think you could have found less of a democrat liberal hating websites for your info, this person who wrote this article is clearly such a person. Also the filibuster has been used more by the repubicans while Clinton was in office than it has been used by the democrats since Bush has been in office. What are you guys complaining about? Sady Bush has gotten everything almost he has asked for and I for one don't like where we are at. Currently they are saying that the USA will maintain a presence in Iraq for at least 5 years.

Jolie Rouge
03-12-2013, 01:21 PM
The filibuster is a very important part of our governing process this is yet one more attempt to change a process that has stood the test of time.

Reid and Pelosi now want to get rid of the filibuster - since it no longer works in their favor.


Currently they are saying that the USA will maintain a presence in Iraq for at least 5 years.

And yet we are STILL there ... no more Code Pink demonstrations; no more calling the POTUS a "murderer" ... I wonder what changed ?? :doh: