Senators Gear Up for Congressional 'Marathon' on Judicial Nominees
by Fred Jackson, Jody Brown, and Bill Fancher
November 12, 2003
(AgapePress) - What's being called the "Justice for Judges Marathon" is set to get under way in the U.S. Senate Wednesday evening. It is the Republicans' latest tactic to derail the Democratic-led stalemate on the president's nominees for the federal bench.Republicans are hoping their 30-hour marathon session -- scheduled to begin at 6:00 p.m. Eastern time -- will draw the public's attention to more than two years of the Democrats' blocking tactics. Conservative leaders have complained that Republicans have not done enough to publicize the Democrats' blockade of the president's constitutional right to appoint individuals to federal judiciary posts.
The GOP also is hopeful that as a result of the session, Democrats will finally allow a simple up-or-down vote on nominees such as Mississippi judge Charles Pickering, Texas judge Priscilla Owen, and Alabama Attorney General William Pryor. They and other nominees have been passed to the Senate by the Judicial Committee, but prevented from confirmation votes of the full Senate by the unofficial "filibuster" tactics of Democrats.
Marion Harrison with the Free Congress Foundation's Judicial Selection Monitoring Project is hopeful the plan indicates a change in approach for the GOP.
"It would signal to me that the [GOP] leadership has changed its mind and has decided to force the issue by forcing the liberal Democrats -- who are personally vilifying these nominees -- to take the floor and actually talk at great length, the traditional definition of a filibuster," Harrison says.
But early indications are that the Democrats have no plans to change their strategy. Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle says "if they need help filibustering themselves, we'll be glad to pitch in."
Thus far, the Republicans have been unable to pull together the 60 votes necessary to break the unofficial filibusters being staged by Democrats. The Senate is currently made up of 51 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and one Independent.
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Gary Bauer |
Bauer Deeply Bothered
"Outrageous" and "unconstitutional" -- those are just some of the adjectives conservatives have been using to described the unprecedented actions of the Democrats to block President Bush's nominees -- particularly those nominees who are not ashamed of their Christian values.On Wednesday morning's edition of James Dobson's "Focus on the Family" radio broadcast, pro-family leader Gary Bauer summed up the magnitude of the problem this way.
"They are being stopped simply because they bring a conservative, traditional approach to looking at the problems in America," Bauer said in reference to the White House's nominees. "We've got to do something about this, otherwise we're going to lose our country -- even though conservatives continue to get elected to many posts around the country."
Bauer maintains that Bush's nominees share the vision of the nation's Founding Fathers: that the people of the nation, not the court, reign supreme. Those nominees, he says, have been opposed by what he calls "the Senate's lords of liberalism."
"Having lost control of the White House, both houses of Congress, and most state houses, America's cultural radicals are waging a pitch battle over control of the federal courts," Bauer writes in a statement released on Wednesday afternoon, adding that he is bothered by a religious litmus test being applied to the nominees.
"The most disturbing aspect of their obstructionism is the blatant hostility to faith. That these nominees believe in the sanctity of life and believe that marriage should remain between a man and a woman is apparently reason enough to bar them from service on the federal bench," he says.
"By this standard, almost every person of faith, Christian or Jew, is automatically disqualified."
According to Bauer, the marathon debate set for Wednesday night has tremendous implications for the country. "At stake is nothing less than our culture," he says.
