KKKarl Rove Spins The Nuclear Option

[Nbadan]

Fresh from his successes leading the fight to privatize Social Security -- after three months of concerted White House efforts, the president's approval rating on the issue has dropped to 31 percent -- Karl Rove is injecting himself into the Senate's deliberations over George W. Bush's judicial nominees. In an interview with USAToday, Rove says he's opposed to any compromise on the "nuclear option" that would involve anything less than up-or-down floor votes on every one of the president's judicial nominees.

Rove's point: The president has already compromised. "Rove said Bush tried to end the stalemate when he renominated just seven of the 10 nominees who had been blocked last year," USAToday reports. Those obstructionist Democrats didn't reciprocate. "I saw no change in tone," Rove said. "The flamethrowers ... came out within moments."

It's a nice story Rove tells about the president's attempt to make peace with the Democrats; it's just not exactly true. When the White House announced in December that Bush would re-nominate the seven judges, White House officials told the New York Times that Bush had offered all of the stalled judges the chance to be re-nominated. Two of them, Carolyn Kuhl and Claude Allen, declined. A third, Charles Pickering, who Bush had placed on the Fifth Circuit through a recess appointment, chose to retire rather than seek Senate confirmation again.

http://images.usatoday.com/news/_photos/2002-07-09-rove.jpg

-- Tim Grieve, Salon (http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html)

Rove also left out the part about previously rejected Judges being nominated again in mass.

[The Ressurrected One]

If you want to talk about spinning the judicial appointments issue, let's:

This morning's ABC News/Washington Post poll is getting a lot of press, with its apparently bad news for Republicans. The Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2004/10/26/AR2005032201677.html) itself headlines its story "Filibuster Rule Change Opposed," and begins its coverage of the poll with that issue:


As the Senate moves toward a major confrontation over judicial appointments, a strong majority of Americans oppose changing the rules to make it easier for Republican leaders to win confirmation of President Bush's court nominees, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

By a 2 to 1 ratio, the public rejected easing Senate rules in a way that would make it harder for Democratic senators to prevent final action on Bush's nominees.
Sounds bad. But here is the question the pollsters asked: "Would you support or oppose changing Senate rules to make it easier for the Republicans to confirm Bush's judicial nominees?" That is an absurd question, to which even I would probably answer "No," too. The way the question is framed, it makes it sound like a one-way street, as though the Republicans wanted to change the rules to benefit only Republican nominees. If they asked a question like, "Do you think that if a majority of Senators support confirmation of a particular nominee, that nominee should be confirmed?" the percentages would probably reverse.

Of course, the poll contains bad news for Republicans across a broad range of issues, including Social Security. Which raises, as always, the question of the poll's internals. Sure enough: they over-sampled Democrats. If you look at page 16 of the poll data, which can be downloaded from the Post's article, it discloses that 35% of the poll's respondents were Democrats, while only 28% were Republicans. Given that slightly more self-identified Republicans than Democrats voted in last November's election, this represents an egregious, seven-point over-sampling of Democrats. No wonder the poll data are bad for Republicans.

Also being left out of the MSM coverage is the fact that this is the first time in the history of Congress that fillibustering has been used to block judicial nominees. Yes, Republicans have blocked nominees in committee (most recently during the Clinton administration) as have Democrats. But, never have nominees, once passed out of committee, been denied an up or down vote from the full Senate. I wonder why the press is failing to report this significant precedent? Particularly when it would explain much of the heartburn Republicans are expressing over the issue.

Spin that Nbadan.

[FromWayDowntown]

Why does it matter that filibusters have never been used in the context of judicial nominees? That it has never happened doesn't mean that it is some unconstitutional effort by the Democrats.

What I find funny about this issue is that Republicans cite to informal congressional precedent as a reason for bashing the Democrats' actions, but want the up-or-down vote on these judges largely because they believe that many of the nominated judges will ignore existing, formal, legal precedent while on the bench, particulary when it comes to the abortion issue.

[The Ressurrected One]

Why does it matter that filibusters have never been used in the context of judicial nominees? That it has never happened doesn't mean that it is some unconstitutional effort by the Democrats.
Changing the rules to prevent it isn't unconsitutional either. The point is that for 214 years the Congress has not done this and, in fact, it is one of the few issues Trent Lott stood with Tom Daschle on when Republicans opposed a Clinton judicial appointee. Even though Lott voted against the nominee, he stood with the Democratic leader and vowed not to obstruct the nominee from reaching the floor for a vote.

Neither of the actions are unconstitutional, but as a matter of decorum, the Democrats have stepped in it big time.

What I find funny about this issue is that Republicans cite to informal congressional precedent as a reason for bashing the Democrats' actions, but want the up-or-down vote on these judges largely because they believe that many of the nominated judges will ignore existing, formal, legal precedent while on the bench, particulary when it comes to the abortion issue.
That's not an assertion you can support beyond regurgitated Liberal rhetoric. All of the nominees, that I'm aware, have vowed -- and proven through their actions -- to be adherents to standing law even in spite of their personal views.

[scott]

That's not an assertion you can support beyond regurgitated Liberal rhetoric. All of the nominees, that I'm aware, have vowed -- and proven through their actions -- to be adherents to standing law even in spite of their personal views.

Is this the same vow that Roy Moore took?

[The Ressurrected One]

Is this the same vow that Roy Moore took?
Roy Moore isn't a nominee but, the Republican Judge who voted to uphold the ruling that resulted in Roy Moore leaving the bench did take that vow and he is one of the obstructed nominees.

[The Ressurrected One]

Another couple of interesting tidbits on the whole "fillibuster" argument that I'd like to see Liberals explain...

Why were Democrats and the non-biased New York Times all in favor of ending filibusters in 1995 but, not now?

Free Republic has posted the text of the still-timely January 1, 1995 New York Times editorial: "Time to retire the filibuster." Here is the Times's 1995 teaching:


The U.S. Senate likes to call itself the world's greatest deliberative body. The greatest obstructive body is more like it. In the last season of Congress, the Republican minority invoked an endless string of filibusters to frustrate the will of the majority. This relentless abuse of a time-honored Senate tradition so disgusted Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, that he is now willing to forgo easy retribution and drastically limit the filibuster. Hooray for him.

For years Senate filibusters--when they weren't conjuring up romantic images of Jimmy Stewart as Mr. Smith, passing out from exhaustion on the Senate floor--consisted mainly of negative feats of endurance. Senator Sam Ervin once spoke for 22 hours straight. Outrage over these tactics and their ability to bring Senate business to a halt led to the current so-called two-track system, whereby a senator can hold up one piece of legislation while other business goes on as usual.

The two-track system has been nearly as obstructive as the old rules. Under those rules, if the Senate could not muster the 60 votes necessary to end debate and bring a bill to a vote, someone had to be willing to continue the debate, in person, on the floor. That is no longer required. Even if the 60 votes are not achieved, debate stops and the Senate proceeds with other business. The measure is simply put on hold until the next cloture vote. In this way a bill can be stymied at any number of points along its legislative journey.

One unpleasant and unforeseen consequence has been to make the filibuster easy to invoke and painless to pursue. Once a rarely used tactic reserved for issues on which senators held passionate convictions, the filibuster has become the tool of the sore loser, dooming any measure that cannot command the 60 required votes.

Mr. Harkin, along with Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, now proposes to make such obstruction harder. Mr. Harkin says reasonably that there must come a point in the process where the majority rules. This may not sit well with some of his Democratic colleagues. They are now perfectly positioned to exact revenge by frustrating the Republican agenda as efficiently as Republicans frustrated Democrats in 1994.

Admirably, Mr. Harkin says he does not want to do that. He proposes to change the rules so that if a vote for cloture fails to attract the necessary 60 votes, the number of votes needed to close off debate would be reduced by three in each subsequent vote. By the time the measure came to a fourth vote--with votes occurring no more frequently than every second day--cloture could be invoked with only a simple majority. Under the Harkin plan, minority members who feel passionately about a given measure could still hold it up, but not indefinitely.

Another set of reforms, more incremental but also useful, is proposed by George Mitchell, who is retiring as the Democratic majority leader. He wants to eat away at some of the more annoying kinds of brakes that can be applied to a measure along its legislative journey.

One example is the procedure for sending a measure to a conference committee with the House. Under current rules, unless the Senate consents unanimously to send a measure to conference, three separate motions can be required to move it along. This gives one senator the power to hold up a measure almost indefinitely. Mr. Mitchell would like to reduce the number of motions to one.

He would also like to limit the debate on a motion to two hours and count the time consumed by quorum calls against the debate time of a senator, thus encouraging senators to save their time for debating the substance of a measure rather than in obstruction. All of his suggestions seem reasonable, but his reforms would leave the filibuster essentially intact.

The Harkin plan, along with some of Mr. Mitchell's proposals, would go a long way toward making the Senate a more productive place to conduct the nation's business. Republicans surely dread the kind of obstructionism they themselves practiced during the last Congress. Now is the perfect moment for them to unite with like-minded Democrats to get rid of an archaic rule that frustrates democracy and serves no useful purpose.

The Free Republic thread includes Senator Cornyn's March 10, 2005 letter to the editor regarding the Times editorial earlier that week. We yield the floor to Senator Cornyn:

"The Senate on the Brink" (editorial, March 6) supports the "historic role of the filibuster," which is a curious position for a newspaper that 10 years ago said filibusters were "the tool of the sore loser" and should be eliminated ("Time to Retire the Filibuster," editorial, Jan. 1, 1995).

Federal judicial appointments have certainly been controversial, but surely all Americans can agree that the rules for confirming judges should be the same regardless of which party has a majority.

Now you praise the filibuster as a "time-honored Senate procedure." In 1995, when Bill Clinton was president, you called it "an archaic rule that frustrates democracy and serves no useful purpose."

You disparage the Republicans' view that 51 votes should be enough for judicial confirmation. Yet the 51-vote rule is a consistent Senate tradition. By calling for an end to filibusters, the Senate is simply contemplating restoring its traditions by traditional methods you disparage as "nuclear," even though they were once endorsed by such leading Democrats as Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Charles E. Schumer and Robert C. Byrd.

There are other MSM outlets that have done a similar about face...

[Nbadan]

http://cagle.slate.msn.com/working/050426/sheneman00.gif

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/comics/images/Toles/20050427.gif

http://cagle.slate.msn.com/working/050425/lane.gif

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/art/editorial/cartoon/2005/575/042405.jpg

[Nbadan]

Also being left out of the MSM coverage is the fact that this is the first time in the history of Congress that fillibustering has been used to block judicial nominees. Yes, Republicans have blocked nominees in committee (most recently during the Clinton administration) as have Democrats. But, never have nominees, once passed out of committee, been denied an up or down vote from the full Senate. I wonder why the press is failing to report this significant precedent? Particularly when it would explain much of the heartburn Republicans are expressing over the issue.

Spin that Nbadan

Republicans are getting away with saying that they have never filibustered Judicial because technically its not a lie. The Fillabuster has never been used to block a nominee. That's true. It is true because all their attempt have failed. On a technicality, what they are saying is correct.

Republicans attempted several filibusters, but couldn't get past cloture. They DID block two of Clinton's nominees (Paez and Berzon) for a considerable period of time (years), but eventually, they were confirmed.

Of course, it's extremely disingenuous for them to whine that they didn't filibuster Clinton's nominees because they didn't HAVE to. Hatch never let them get a hearing, so they never made it to the floor, where a filibuster is a last resort.

A filibuster is the tool of the minority party. If the party controls the Judiciary Committee and the floor schedule, there's no need to filibuster. TRO keeps forgetting to mention that part.

[Nbadan]

Myth 2: Judicial filibusters are unprecedented. Republicans insist that judicial filibusters never happened before. Frist put it this way: "In February 2003 the minority radically broke with tradition and precedent and launched the first-ever filibuster of a judicial nominee who had majority support."

In truth, no one should understand the legitimacy of judicial filibusters better than Bill Frist. On March 9, 2000, Frist participated in a filibuster of Richard Paez, President Clinton's nominee to the Ninth Circuit. When confronted about his vote late last year, Frist claimed he filibustered Paez for "scheduling" purposes. Not true. A press release by former Senator Bob Smith titled "Smith Leads Effort to Block Activist Judicial Nominees" plainly states that the intent of the filibuster was to "block" the Paez nomination.

In fact, Paez was only one of at least six filibusters Republicans attempted during the Clinton years. Senator Orrin Hatch and others argue that these filibusters don't count because they ultimately weren't successful in blocking the nominees. All that proves, however, is that Clinton's nominees were moderate enough to secure sixty votes. It also suggests the remedy to Bush's problem: Stop nominating extremist judges to the federal bench.

Common Dreams.org (http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0305-29.htm)

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 106th Congress - 2nd Session

as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate

Vote Summary

Question: On the Cloture Motion (Cloture Motion RE: Nom. of Richard Paez to be U.S. Circuit Judge)

Vote Number: 37
Vote Date: March 8, 2000, 05:51 PM
Required For Majority: 3/5 Vote
Result: Cloture Motion Agreed to
Nomination Number: PN44
Nomination Description: Richard A. Paez, of California, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit, vice Cecil F. Poole, resigned.

Vote Counts: YEAs 85
NAYs 14
Not Voting 1
. . .

NAYs ---14
Allard (R-CO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Craig (R-ID)
DeWine (R-OH)
Enzi (R-WY)
Frist (R-TN)
Gramm (R-TX)
Helms (R-NC)
Hutchinson (R-AR)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-NH)

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/r...


Frist also voted against previous Motions to Proceed on this judicial nomination, as well as at least one other. So much for his demand that nominees get an up or down vote.

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 106th Congress - 1st Session
as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate

Vote Summary

Question: On the Motion to Proceed (Motion to Proceed: Nom. of R. Paez to be U.S. Circuit Judge)

Vote Number: 283
Vote Date: September 21, 1999, 07:01 PM
Required For Majority: 1/2 Vote
Result: Motion to Proceed Rejected
Nomination Number: PN44
Nomination Description: Richard A. Paez, of California, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit, vice Cecil F. Poole, resigned.

Vote Counts: YEAs 45
NAYs 53
Not Voting 2

NAYs ---53
Abraham (R-MI)
Allard (R-CO)
Ashcroft (R-MO)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burns (R-MT)
Campbell (R-CO)
Chafee, J. (R-RI)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Coverdell (R-GA)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeWine (R-OH)
Domenici (R-NM)
Enzi (R-WY)
Fitzgerald (R-IL)
Frist (R-TN)
Gorton (R-WA)
Gramm (R-TX)
Grams (R-MN)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchinson (R-AR)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Jeffords (R-VT)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lott (R-MS)
Lugar (R-IN)
Mack (R-FL)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Nickles (R-OK)
Roberts (R-KS)
Roth (R-DE)
Santorum (R-PA)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-NH)
Smith (R-OR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stevens (R-AK)
Thomas (R-WY)
Thompson (R-TN)
Thurmond (R-SC)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/r...
_______________________________________________

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 106th Congress - 1st Session
as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate

Vote Summary

Question: On the Motion to Proceed (Motion to Proceed: Nom. of M. Berzon to be U.S. Circuit Judge)

Vote Number: 282 Vote Date: September 21, 1999, 06:44 PM
Required For Majority: 1/2 Vote
Result: Motion to Proceed Rejected
Nomination Number: PN33
Nomination Description: Marsha L. Berzon, of California, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit, vice John T. Noonan, Jr., retired.

Vote Counts: YEAs 45
NAYs 54
Not Voting 1

NAYs ---54
Abraham (R-MI)
Allard (R-CO)
Ashcroft (R-MO)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burns (R-MT)
Campbell (R-CO)
Chafee, J. (R-RI)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Coverdell (R-GA)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeWine (R-OH)
Domenici (R-NM)
Enzi (R-WY)
Fitzgerald (R-IL)
Frist (R-TN)
Gorton (R-WA)
Gramm (R-TX)
Grams (R-MN)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Helms (R-NC)
Hutchinson (R-AR)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Jeffords (R-VT)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lott (R-MS)
Lugar (R-IN)
Mack (R-FL)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Nickles (R-OK)
Roberts (R-KS)
Roth (R-DE)
Santorum (R-PA)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-NH)
Smith (R-OR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stevens (R-AK)
Thomas (R-WY)
Thompson (R-TN)
Thurmond (R-SC)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/r...

[The Ressurrected One]

Republicans are getting away with saying that they have never filibustered Judicial because technically its not a lie.
Thanks Nbadan. You just responded to yourself.

[Nbadan]

Yoni spinning the truth - worthless.
Tim Russert calling out George Allen over symantics - priceless!


Video clip in Quicktime and Windows Media (http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/05/01.html#a2722) - "Meet the Press." Tim Russert is no favorite of mine or of most of you, but he really nails this lying fool and doesn't let him squirm loose. Very satisfying to watch.

Excerpt:


MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to federal judges. Court of Appeals: Bill Clinton nominated 51 people to the Court of Appeals. Thirty-five were confirmed. Sixteen were blocked by the Republicans by not giving hearings or not allowed out of committee. George Bush nominated 52. Thirty-five were confirmed because the Democrats threatened filibuster. They don't run the committees, so they can't block it in committee. What's the difference?

SEN. ALLEN: I think you'll find on the Circuit Court judges that President Bush has the lowest percentage of Circuit Court judges...

MR. RUSSERT: I just gave you the numbers. Clinton nominated 51; 35 were confirmed. Bush nominated 52; 35 were confirmed. Those are the numbers.

SEN. ALLEN: Well, I have different numbers than that. The reality is that some of President Clinton's nominees were blocked in committee. They did not--and a lot of them were also brought up at the very end of his term.