Time to get a Spine

We have a new judicial nominee under fire, Janice Brown, whose nomination for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has raised the ire of the People for the American Way, the NAACP, and the Congressional Black Caucus. Joining the character assassination against Judge Brown is the Black Commentator whose ugly cartoon below, became part of the Senate Judiciary Hearing:

Thomas Sowell comments on the reason behind these tactics in his Town Hall column:

Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch put the cartoon on display to show what ugly methods were being used to try to block this nomination. The fact that Justice Brown is a black woman is by no means irrelevant to the ruthless ferocity with which she is being attacked. She has been denounced as "another Clarence Thomas."

Janice Rogers Brown is being seen, not just as a threat to the liberal agenda in the courts, but also as a threat to political orthodoxy among blacks, a key voting bloc for the Democrats. For her to go from her current position on the California Supreme Court to national prominence would threaten the monopoly of the liberal-left mindset among blacks.

Black "leaders" like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and black organizations like the NAACP, must maintain a monopoly because they cannot risk everything in a free market of ideas. Therefore they must demonize Clarence Thomas and cut off at the pass anyone who might become another nationally visible black voice with alternative ideas

.

Unfortunately, the Janice Brown nomination, although compelling by itself, is only one of the trees in this forest. Sowell points us to the site of the Committee for Justice for a background paper on Justice Brown. Prominently displayed on the main page are judicial nominations that are currently being blocked:

Priscilla Owen - 5th Circuit
Carolyn Kuhl - 9th Circuit
Bill Pryor - 11th Circuit
David McKeague - 6th Circuit
Henry W. Saad - 6th Circuit
Susan Bieke Neilson - 6th Circuit
Richard Griffin - 6th Circuit

We also have Miguel Estrada, by all reports emminently qualified, who withdrew after waiting for confirnation 29 months.

"Senate Democrats said over and over that Miguel Estrada is highly intelligent, of good character, and well qualified for the bench," Gray said. "But, they said, they could not vote for him because the Bush Administration refused to release to them privileged work-product from his years in the Office of the Solicitor General, a decision applauded by every living former Solicitor General of both parties.”

“Sadly, Estrada’s withdrawal will only encourage Democrats in the use of the filibuster. I therefore call on the Senate Republican leadership to end these filibusters and prevent them for any future nominees,” Gray said. “Otherwise, the current course will have lasting and corrosive effects on the institution of the Senate and the independence of the judiciary.”

Obviously something is broken here. When the Republicans won control of Congress in the 2002 elections I specifically remember saying to everyone within earshot, "Now I expect to see some results."

When it comes to judicial nominees, the majority Republican Senate has failed to deliver.

Why? Can we blame it on the Democrats for the unprecendented step of filibustering the administrations nominees? I have a major problem with that characterization.

If there are actual "filibusters" occurring where are the pictures of the Senate full of legislators needing a shave, or sprawling in their seats at 2 AM in the hope of breaking the gridlock? Hmmmm. You haven't seen this on the news?

Of course, that would be because it's not happening. No. The Republican majority is allowing the Democratic minority to "filibuster" and have their way in the Senate without actually staging a filibuster. It is so under the radar, that it's hard to find any national story about it. This is from Mens News Daily, written before the Brown nomination:

However, a filibuster traditionally involves "non-stop" debate in which the filibuster must be a constant 24 hours a day, seven days a week procedure. The Democrats have been allowed to carry out a "country club" version of a filibuster -- never having to lose sleep or skip a meal in order to block conservative judges from consideration. It is clear from the feelings of Republicans across the country that enough is enough. It's time for Republicans in the Senate to force the Democrats into a real filibuster.

I also found a reference to it in a Weekly Standard editorial dated May 19:

The truth is that there is no way other than ordinary politics truly to "fix" the process. Not incidentally, the Senate Republican leadership could force the Democrats to conduct a real filibuster--marathon, stay-up-all-night sessions like those of yesteryear. That might fix the process real quick. A larger Republican majority--obtained through electoral politics--could also fix the process. Consider that a majority of 56 Republicans--five more than now--is all that would be needed (since four Democrats would join them) to force a vote on the Estrada nomination.

The chief utility, we suppose, of the loud search for ways to "fix" the process is to draw media attention to the Democrats' extremism. And of course the Republicans know that. (Maybe that's why they haven't forced a classic filibuster.) The wonder is that the Democrats seem clueless about the degree to which their blocking votes on nominees could hurt their chances for retaking the Senate in 2004.

Robert Novak writes in his column today, GOP goes on ofensive on judges, that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will begin a counteroffensive this week.

He will start by returning to one of President Bush's nominees generally given up for dead. The effort will accelerate throughout this congressional session into mid-November, with one roll-call vote after another.

None of this may confirm any of the federal appellate court nominees marked for defeat by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Democratic grandmaster, because they are deemed too conservative. This effort is intended to ''refocus'' (the word used by GOP strategists) on the unprecedented filibuster campaign to prevent a sitting president from selecting his own judiciary. The refocused struggle would peak early in the 2004 election year with a frontal assault on filibuster rules.

...

Many GOP senators, mirroring their business supporters, would like to concede Kennedy's triumph on judges and get on with their own agenda.

Get on with their own agenda? What is more important than stopping the legislation from the bench?

But rank-and-file Republicans care deeply. The president on the road mentions the failure to confirm judges in nearly every speech, and it evokes more applause than anything else. Republicans are sensitive to complaints that Frist is too timid to wage a 24-7 strategy to let Democrats talk themselves to death.

I'm not impressed with Frist's plan as outlined by Novak. It basically calls for letting the Democrats continue to vote down ending the filibuster on all the judges repeatedly. When this fails, they will put forth a bill that would reduce the number of votes needed to end a filibuster. The expectation is that this bill would also be filibustered.

Followed by:

All this refocusing is intended to set the scene for a bitter battle in next year's session of Congress. At that time, an effort may be made to rule out of order a filibuster against judicial nominations -- the ''so-called'' nuclear solution. This would require only 51 votes, but Frist does not even have that many today because of reluctance to tamper with the traditions of the Senate.

Then Novak concludes:

Whether or not Frist's offensive eventually places any of these well-qualified judges on the bench, it will sound a stentorian refusal to surrender. That means a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Senate have not acquiesced in letting Ted Kennedy determine the membership of the federal judiciary. The battle resumes today.

Let me paraphrase. We may not get results, but it will look like we're doing something!

Hogwash. I'm sorry that's not good enough. Before we "put on a show" that might not get results, and tamper with existing Senate rules, I call on the Republicans to force the Democrats to actually filibuster according to Senate rules. Let's see them go 24/7 on all the judicial nominees they are blocking above. Let's see them defend stopping all work in the Senate for as long as they can hold out.

I promise you it will be much more effective in getting results than the "counteroffensive" Novak reveals today.

Time to get a spine and do the work we elected you to do!

DC

Comments

why doesn't the gop just elect one (1) black person in congress?