You mean a failed filibuster followed by confirmation? Sounds good to me.
Antonin Scalia
- Thread starter gunslingerdick
- Start date
No. I probably gave Obama too much leeway... Actually, whoever Obama nominates should get no hearing whatsoever, which was the point of the Obama filibuster of Alito. Obama deserves nothing but the bird from the Senate. Here is the reason I feel the way I feel:
1. Sen Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in 2007 that President George W. Bush shouldn’t get to pick any more Supreme Court justices because Schumer was afraid the bench leaned too far Right. Schumer made this remark a whole 19 months before the next president was inaugurated.
“We should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court, except in extraordinary circumstances,” Schumer said in a speech to the liberal American Constitution Society. “They must prove by actions, not words, that they are in the mainstream rather than we have to prove that they are not.”
2. His remarks in 2007 weren’t the only time Schumer vowed to stop a Republican nominee. In 2004, he said he would do everything in his power to stop Bush from elevating Charles Pickering to a federal appeals court in 2004.
“I’m prepared to do everything I can to stop the nomination of Justice Pickering,” Schumer said. “We can do a lot better.”
3. Schumer again promised to make the nomination process difficult for President Bush amid a confirmation battle over Carolyn Kuhl, who was nominated as a judge to the Ninth Circuit Court.
In 2004, his office released a statement saying Senate Democrats planned to “hold nominations until the White House commits to stop abusing the advise and consent process.”
The statement was part of Democratic coalition to stop Bush from using his recess appointing powers. The president eventually conceded and promised he would stop appointing judges while Congress was on vacation in exchange for them stopping filibustering.
4. Then-Senator Barack Obama said in 2006 that he supported the Democratic-led filibuster to stop Justice Samuel Alito from making it to the Supreme Court.
There are some who believe that the president, having won the election, should have complete authority to appoint his nominee…that once you get beyond intellect and personal character, there should be no further question as to whether the judge should be confirmed. I disagree with this view.
Obama wasn’t the only Democratic senator to oppose Alito’s nomination. The late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) led an opposition coalition, which attempted to filibuster to block the confirmation process. Kennedy was joined by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who publicly stated they opposed Alito’s confirmation.
“The record demonstrates that we cannot count on Judge Alito to blow the whistle when the president is out of bounds,” Kennedy said.
5. In 1960, the Democratic-controlled Senate passed a resolution to block President Eisenhower from being able to make any more recess appointments to the Supreme Court. The resolution stated:
Expressing the sense of the Senate that the president should not make recess appointments to the Supreme Court, except to prevent or end a breakdown in the administration of the Court’s business.
6. Kennedy led a gang of eight senators in 2003 to block Bush nominee Miguel Estrada from rising to the Court of Appeals.
“Instead of looking for candidates who are extreme ideologues, the president should work with the Senate in nominating individuals who have the highest qualifications,” Kennedy said, while taking a victory lap after the Bush administration withdrew Estrada’s nomination.
7. The AFL-CIO union vowed to block then-President Ronald Reagan’s nominee Robert Bork by soiling his public reputation so badly that any Democratic senator who voted in favor of confirming him would have to explain it to his constituents. Kennedy continued this line of rhetoric in a well-known floor speech. He infamously said:
Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government.
8. Joe Biden wrote the playbook for how to “bork” a Supreme Court nominee, a descriptive verb that now means to publicly pillory a nominee’s reputation to make it politically difficult for senators to vote for them. It’s named, of course, after what Democrats did to Robert Bork.
Then-Senator Biden was the chair of the judiciary committee, and he put together what’s now been deemed a “Biden report,” a document detailing Bork’s judicial history and personal background. The judiciary committee voted against Bork’s confirmation by a vote of 9-5.
9. Democratic groups vowed to “bork” Justice Clarence Thomas, George H.W. Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court. They failed, but the personal attacks on Thomas were brutal.
“We’re going to bork him,” said National Organization for Women’s Flo Kennedy. “We need to kill him politically.”
10. In 2008, Democrats banded together to filibuster Bush’s decision to nominate Priscilla Owen to a federal circuit court.
Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, urged Senate Democrats to “stand up and fight as they have been doing with Miguel Estrada.”
“At this time of global turmoil, we don’t need extremists in the courts willing to make a Dred Scott decision in the area of women’s fundamental rights,” she said.
Is this acknowledgement that His Excellency has indeed not succeeded in everything he has ever done? Better edit that before you get the boot from the Democratic Party, and the wrath of spite from Hillary.
What are you talking about? The confirmation hearing comes before any cloture vote. It's impossible to filibuster a nominee before a hearing. The rest of this cut and paste post is completely irrelevant because in none of those cases did the Senate refuse to hold a hearing, which is the only thing I'm condemning here.
Why is it torturing common sense to suggest that the Senate should do what the Constitution says they are supposed to do? Conservatives love to wrap themselves in the Constitution until it's inconvenient.
Well, I condemn the notion that any future Obama SCOTUS nominee should receive a hearing at based how the DUMs have completely screwed this country up when it comes to nominees to the bench in general and SCOTUS nominees in particular. It is about time a DUM nominee received the same abuse as GOPer nominees, just for spite and malice. Eff'em.
DUM nominees are going to get their chance to drink from the same cup GOPer nominees have had to drink for decades. And, I hope they all choke on it. Eff'em.
There is nothing in the Constitution that says the Senate must hold hearings or hold a vote on a particular nominee. In fact, it is silent on whether or not the Senate can remain silent on a nominee... Sticking a finger in Obama's eye does that quite effectively, with emphasis.
Except that Democrats have never, not once, denied a nominee a hearing.
Yep. I guess this will be the new norm. No more hearings; no more Supreme Court justices. If they won't do it now, why should anyone do it ever? The whole thing is childish. They'll cave, though. This kind of obstructionism plays well with the base but not with the public at large. Republicans can't afford to look so irrational right before an election.
Wrong. The Democrats originated this idea. Democrats have prevented votes on Democrat and Republican nominees.
And, you can thank your DEM party for creating the history that brings us to this point, a history created by the likes of Schemer, Reid, Biden, and Obama.
Hearings are the things where the people ask questions. Votes are the things where the people say yea or nay. Democrats have prevented votes by filibuster. It's fine with me if Republicans want to do this after a hearing. Democrats have never prevented a nominee (much less an as-yet-named nominee) from having a hearing like the Republicans are threatening to do now.
I'm tired of repeating myself over and over in this thread. I'm done.
I'm tired of repeating myself. Democrats have killed nominees without votes or questions being asked. It's your problem if you can't handle that.
I've heard the same about Hillary not being able to look so irrational regarding the whole email server, Benghazi, lying and getting people killed thing. I don't buy either of them, the general populace doesn't care about these things (although I agree that they should). For the most part they see a name or a party name that they feel good siding with, and vote accordingly - issues be damned.
So I didn't catch the news this morning but in passing I heard our president is not attending Scalia's funeral mass tomorrow? Has that ever happened before, a sitting president not attending the funeral of a Supreme Court justice? It just seems like another one of Obama's divisive decisions from a long list of divisiveness.
He's attending the event at the Supreme Court today, and made numerous statements in expressing his condolences to the Scalia family. This is not a precedent he's setting as there have been a few occasions where neither the POTUS or VEEP have attended a SC Justice's funeral.
I did read today where he expressed his condolences. Great. But given the climate he should attend. It's not that hard really and it would be the right thing to do considering Scalia was a member of the highest court. If another president has done it in the past then that was disrespectful too unless he was on his deathbed himself.
I've never really cared that much about politicians going to any type of funeral for a political figure or someone who died and it got national attention. It causes too much distraction from the person who actually died and their family. Most of the time it's more for political purposes so that just makes it disrespectful as well. Just my opinion.
Perfect summation of Obama - if it's not all about Obama, he doesn't want to be involved...
I appreciate you taking time out of your days to educate the naive contrarians here, Heels in Space. They don't appreciate it, but I do.
Whoever Obama nominates should never get a hearing! Stick it to Reid, Schumer, Leahy, Biden and Obama to the max.
Last edited:
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley delivered an emphatic argument against holding hearings, citing not his own reasoning, but instead a lengthy floor speech then-Sen. Joe Biden delivered in 1992. Biden's remarks excoriate the prospect of a president submitting a nomination in an election year.
"Once the political season is under way, action on a Supreme Court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is over," Grassley said quoting the vice president, dubbing the remarks "The Biden Rules."
"(Biden) knows what the Senate should do. And I believe in his heart of hearts he understands why this Senate must do what he said it must do in 1992," Grassley said.
"Once the political season is under way, action on a Supreme Court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is over," Grassley said quoting the vice president, dubbing the remarks "The Biden Rules."
"(Biden) knows what the Senate should do. And I believe in his heart of hearts he understands why this Senate must do what he said it must do in 1992," Grassley said.
Similar threads
Latest posts
-
-
-
After Surviving Internal Threats, ACC Now Has a Men’s Basketball Problem- Latest: 90sWoollenGymRat
-
-
