Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is determined to stack the Supreme Court with extremist judges. Yesterday, Minority Leader Harry Reid offered Frist an astonishingly generous compromise on judicial nominations to federal circuit courts, which would have allowed up to four of the seven stalled nominees to be confirmed. Frist rejected the offer out-of-hand, indicating that "any agreement must include a pledge not to filibuster future nominees especially Supreme Court nominees." Frist appears to be taking his marching orders from the White House. In an interview with USA Today printed yesterday, Karl Rove widely considered the most influential presidential advisor expressed his opposition to any compromise.
In a March 15 letter to Reid, Frist promised that "when we return after the Easter recess, I will offer a proposal that takes account of complaints both parties have had with the confirmation process. It will protect the Constitution, validate our duties as Senators, and restore fairness to a process gone awry." More than a month later, Frist has yet to make a proposal.
Speaking on Air Force One yesterday, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, "What has happened in this Senate is unprecedented. There has not been a situation like this, where members of one party have blocked nominees from even receiving an up or down vote on the floor." In fact, there have been many situations like this. In the late 1990s, "more than 50 Clinton nominees were not even granted a hearing by the GOP-led Judiciary Committee." Overall, "35 percent of Clinton's appeals court nominees were blocked without a vote while the GOP controlled the Senate from 1995 to 2000." In contrast, Congress has approved more than 95 percent of President Bush's judicial nominees.
Frist and the White House are ready to throw away more than 200 years of Senate tradition to make sure that we have judges like Janice Rogers Brown on the federal bench. On Sunday, Brown gave a speech arguing that "people of faith were embroiled in a 'war' against secular humanists who threatened to divorce America from its religious roots." According to newspaper accounts, Rogers said, "[t]here seems to have been no time since the Civil War that this country was so bitterly divided. It's not a shooting war, but it is a war." Brown added, "these are perilous times for people of faith ... in the sense that it will cost you something if you are a person of faith who stands up for what you believe in and say those things out loud." Opposition to Brown, however, is not based on her religious beliefs, but her extreme positions on substantive legal issues.
Brown's comments echoed the theme of Justice Sunday, an event held this weekend by the Family Research Council (FRC) that argued filibustering presidential nominees is an attack on people of faith. Seven years ago the group had a different perspective. In 1998, the FRC strongly supported the use of the filibuster against James Hormel, President Clinton's nominee to be ambassador of Luxembourg, because Hormel was gay. At the time, Steven Schwalm, a senior writer for FRC, said, "the Senate is not a majoritarian institution, like the House of Representatives is. It is a deliberative body, and it's got a number of checks and balances built into our government. The filibuster is one of those checks in which a majority cannot just sheerly force its will, even if they have a majority of votes in some cases."
In a March 15 letter to Reid, Frist promised that "when we return after the Easter recess, I will offer a proposal that takes account of complaints both parties have had with the confirmation process. It will protect the Constitution, validate our duties as Senators, and restore fairness to a process gone awry." More than a month later, Frist has yet to make a proposal.
Speaking on Air Force One yesterday, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, "What has happened in this Senate is unprecedented. There has not been a situation like this, where members of one party have blocked nominees from even receiving an up or down vote on the floor." In fact, there have been many situations like this. In the late 1990s, "more than 50 Clinton nominees were not even granted a hearing by the GOP-led Judiciary Committee." Overall, "35 percent of Clinton's appeals court nominees were blocked without a vote while the GOP controlled the Senate from 1995 to 2000." In contrast, Congress has approved more than 95 percent of President Bush's judicial nominees.
Frist and the White House are ready to throw away more than 200 years of Senate tradition to make sure that we have judges like Janice Rogers Brown on the federal bench. On Sunday, Brown gave a speech arguing that "people of faith were embroiled in a 'war' against secular humanists who threatened to divorce America from its religious roots." According to newspaper accounts, Rogers said, "[t]here seems to have been no time since the Civil War that this country was so bitterly divided. It's not a shooting war, but it is a war." Brown added, "these are perilous times for people of faith ... in the sense that it will cost you something if you are a person of faith who stands up for what you believe in and say those things out loud." Opposition to Brown, however, is not based on her religious beliefs, but her extreme positions on substantive legal issues.
Brown's comments echoed the theme of Justice Sunday, an event held this weekend by the Family Research Council (FRC) that argued filibustering presidential nominees is an attack on people of faith. Seven years ago the group had a different perspective. In 1998, the FRC strongly supported the use of the filibuster against James Hormel, President Clinton's nominee to be ambassador of Luxembourg, because Hormel was gay. At the time, Steven Schwalm, a senior writer for FRC, said, "the Senate is not a majoritarian institution, like the House of Representatives is. It is a deliberative body, and it's got a number of checks and balances built into our government. The filibuster is one of those checks in which a majority cannot just sheerly force its will, even if they have a majority of votes in some cases."
