Will There Be a Deal? Or Will Judicial Filibusters Be Shut Down?

by Fred Jackson, Jody Brown, and Bill Fancher
May 23, 2005

(AgapePress) - Several pro-family leaders will be closely monitoring events in the U.S. Senate tonight (Monday) and on Tuesday as the lawmakers take up the expected call for a confirmation vote on one of President Bush's federal judicial nominees who has been stymied by a Democratic-led filibuster.

Dr. Don Wildmon

Don Wildmon, the founder of the American Family Association, says voters will know by Monday evening how Republican senators feel about the future of the nation. His grave warning refers to a key decision in which several GOP senators are considering a deal with the Democrats. Under the proposed arrangement, filibusters against some of the president's nominees would be lifted, allowing those nominees to be put to an up-or-down confirmation vote before the full Senate. In return, the Democrats would be permitted to continue using the filibuster to block other nominees.

Wildmon says pro-family advocates should not underestimate the danger of allowing such a deal to occur.

"Everything is at stake here. If they compromise once again, then really they're going to compromise on the next Supreme Court justice nominee. Nothing is going to change," the AFA founder says. "Liberals, despite the fact that they've lost every [recent national] election, are still going to stay in charge because then they can still control the judiciary."

Wildmon says his organization is focusing on two key Republican senators who have been reported as willing to side with Democrats. He says Senators John Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina need to hear from voters that compromise is simply not an acceptable alternative.

Gary Bauer says Republican senators who are trying to negotiate the deal are "weak-kneed" and must hear from their constituents. He points out that nothing in the U.S. Constitution gives a Senate minority veto power over a president's nominees.

"This is one of the most important issues of our time. Our most cherished values are being redefined in the courts -- from the right to life to the sanctity of traditional marriage -- every issue we care about most ultimately ends up before un-elected judges," the conservative leader says. "Every judicial nominee deserves a fair up-or-down vote on confirmation."

'Like a Box of Chocolates'
Jan LaRue is chief counsel for Concerned Women for America. Aside from the possible deal being struck between Republican and Democratic senators, she is concerned that Majority Leader Bill Frist may not have sufficient support from his own party to vote an end to the years-long filibustering of some of Bush's nominees -- even though he would need only 51 senators to accomplish that. If judicial nominee Priscilla Owen fails to garner the votes needed for confirmation, Frist is expected to ask Vice President Dick Cheney, who presides over the Senate, to declare the filibuster out of order.

As LaRue points out, if six Republican senators agree to a compromise, Frist will not have the votes he needs. But she admits she is not sure what will happen, or even if Vice President Cheney might be required to cast a tie-breaking vote.

"Politicians remind me of Forrest Gump's box of chocolates," she says. "They're either firm, soft-centered, or nutty. You can't be sure what you'll get until it's time for them to vote."

And she says it makes no sense for the GOP to strike a deal with the Democrats "who have nothing to lose and everything to gain." Besides, she says, Democrats have themselves "flip-flopped" on filibusters. "They hate [filibusters] when it's their nominees, yet now they act like they're enshrined in the Constitution," she observes, noting that in 1995 nineteen Democratic senators attempted to end all filibusters.

Phyllis Schlafly

Positive Signs
Since the beginning of President George W. Bush's first term, his backers have broadcast the need to curb activist judges. Christian grassroots political activist Phyllis Schlafly believes word about that need is beginning to get out to Americans.

According to Schlafly, the last general election -- and some recent court decisions -- are sending an encouraging message. The founder of Eagle Forum says the battle against same-sex "marriage" helped to mobilize momentum against some activist judges, whom she says surely took note of the state ballot initiatives banning such unions that passed during the November election.

"The election returns of last November were powerful and overwhelming, in favor of traditional marriage -- and this has set back the gay rights movement," she says. "It has also set back a lot of judges who think they can rewrite everything."

Schlafly says that bore itself out through some recent high-profile decisions, such as in Oregon where the state supreme court upheld the voters' constitutional ban on homosexual marriage. "I think it was interesting that one of the most liberal states, Oregon, did uphold the will of the people," she states. "I think that this means that our criticisms of the court are having good effect."

Which is why Schlafly says she wrote her book The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It -- specifically, to help provide a strategy for increasingly aware voters.