BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 03:11 PM

"The Dems changed the rules, not the Republicans. The Dems are threatening to block all business in the Senate if the Republicans succeed in returning the rules to where they were and as they were applied for some 200 years." DougR

This is what I objected to, Doug. In doing some reading of my own, this is not the information I have gleaned. I googled: "filibuster rules" + history.

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 05:11 AM

Doug--

Sorry, that won't wash. Without info from you to the contrary, I'm forced to the conclusion that your sources are the usual Bushite unimpeachable ones---Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity et al.

It breaks my heart that my postings might bother you.

I certainly have enjoyed your stories about Eddy Arnold, etc.---I really like country music, and sing it a lot-----, but when it comes to politics or history, you have yet to establish yourself as a credible source, or even a thinking individual.

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: DougR
Date: 18 Mar 05 - 12:24 AM

Ron: I don't know how long you have been a Mudcatter. I don't care, as a matter of fact. I suspect I've been here a tad longer than you, but this I know, your insulting posts are getting a bit weary. If you are curious, look it up yourself. As a matter of fact, I think it has been covered already in another current thread so it shouldn't be too difficult to research.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 11:06 PM

Mmmmm-mmm! GOOD maple syrup!

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Ron Davies
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 10:20 PM

Doug--

1) Very interesting column in the Wall St Journal on this. 2 former Republican senators, both conservatives, come out strongly against the "nuclear option". The gist of it is, as Troll so sagely noted "What goes around..."


2) The Dems changed the rules, not the Republicans". All the Republicans want is to return the rules "to where they were and as they were applied for some 200 years".

Source, please (for once in your Mudcat existence.)

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 07:38 PM

Ahhhhh, what did you just say, Dougie?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: DougR
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 07:10 PM

Bobert: no you know what it is to be represented by folks whose views you share, but are in the minority.

Ebbie: I read.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: pdq
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 07:06 PM

...sorry again, folks, but 1937 was much more than Bill D's 40 years ago....

1937, F.D.R tries to pack the Supreme Court:

"Working quietly, Attorney General Cummings drafted a bill that, on the surface, appeared to streamline the entire federal court system. But the real target was the Supreme Court. Cummings proposed that Congress pass a law granting the president the power to nominate an additional judge for every federal judge who, having served a minimum of 10 years, did not resign or retire within six months after reaching age 70. In effect, this would enable FDR to add up to six more justices to the Supreme Court as well as nearly 50 more lower-court federal judges. Of course, the Senate would still have to approve his nominations.

FDR sent his court-reform bill to Congress on February 5, 1937. In his accompanying message, Roosevelt stated that the judiciary should be reorganized "in order that it also may function in accord with modern necessities." He pointed out that the number of justices on the Supreme Court had been changed by Congress six previous times. The president argued that the federal courts were crowded with pending cases causing costly delays. He also addressed the issue of "aged or infirm judges" and the need for "younger blood":


A lowered mental or physical vigor leads men to avoid an examination of complicated and changed conditions. Little by little, new facts become blurred through old glasses filled, as it were,        for the needs of another generation . . .


The "Court-Packing" Fight

Much to the surprise of President Roosevelt, his court-reform plan came under serious attack. The press soon began to refer to it as FDR's "court-packing" scheme. The president was compared with Hitler in seeking dictatorial powers. Even some liberal New Deal Democrats in Congress voiced their reservations."

...that was from here:

Constitutional Rights Foundation -
Officers: Knox Cologne, President; Alan Friedman, Immediate Past President; Publications Committee: Jerome C. Byrne, Chairperson; Paul Cane, Gerald Chaleff, Peggy Saferstein, Marvin Sears, Eugene Shutler, Lloyd M. Smith, Marjorie Steinberg, Lois Thompson, Susan Troy, Daniel H Willick; Staff: Todd Clark, Executive Director; Marshall L. Croddy, Director of Program and Materials Development; Lisa Friedman, Associate Director of Program and Materials Development; Carlton Martz, Writer; Bill Hayes, Editor; Cristy Lytal, Web Editor; Andrew Costly, Production Manager; Lloyd M. Smith, CRF Board Reviewer.

© 1994, Constitutional Rights Foundation, 601 South Kingsley Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90005,  [phone]

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 06:50 PM

Filibuster or not, pdq, the Repubs used what ever tricks they could to block Clinton's appointments. At one time there were some 70 confirmations being held up...

I don't think it really matters how they did it. They did it... Clinton spent the last fout years complaining about not being able to get an "up and down" vote on his aqppointments.

Do you deny that? 'Cause if you do I'll do a little Googling and find out what they used to block Clinton's judges and then you can answer why it is that whatever they used to do the same thing is so much more righteous than what the Dems have done...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 06:40 PM

In the past most judges, especially to the Supreme Court, were nominated for their judicial expertise, not for their perceived partisan and/or extremist views. We didn't NEED to filibuster many choices.

This has changed remarkably in the last 30-40 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: pdq
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 06:17 PM

...sorry Bobert, Ebbie, et al, but here are the facts...


Remarks as Prepared for Majority Leader Bill Frist, MD
The Federalist Society 2004 National Convention
Wardman Park Marriott Hotel
November 11, 2004:


"The current Minority has filibustered 10 -- and threatened to filibuster another 6 -- nominees to federal appeals courts.

This is unprecedented in over 200 years of Senate history.

Never before has a Minority blocked a judicial nominee that has majority support for an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.

Never.

Now the Minority says the filibuster is their only choice, because the Majority controls both the White House and the Senate. But that fails the test of history.

The same party controlled the White House and the Senate for 70 percent of the 20th Century. No Minority filibustered judicial nominees then.

Howard Baker's Republican Minority didn't filibuster Democrat Jimmy Carter's nominees.

Robert Byrd's Democrat Minority didn't filibuster Republican Ronald Reagan's nominees.

Bob Dole's Republican Minority didn't filibuster Democrat Bill Clinton's nominees.

Now there's nothing specific in the formal Rules of the Senate that restrained those Minorities from filibustering. They simply used self-restraint.

Those Senators didn't filibuster, because it wasn't something Senators did.

They understood the Senate's role in the appointments process. And they heeded the intent and deferred to the greater wisdom of the Framers of the Constitution.

Then came the 108th Congress..."

                      read more

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 05:11 PM

What Ebbie said, Doug...

Clinton's appointments couldn't get an up and down vote because of Rpublicabn filibusters so why wxactly is it that you now think that Bush's shoule be treated any differently?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 02:24 PM

Gads, Doug. Do some reading, will you.

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: DougR
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 02:01 PM

Yes Troll, it is. All the Republicans want is an opportunity for the President's appointees to the the federal bench to have an up and down vote on the senate floor. The Dems changed the rules, not the Republicans. The Dems are threatening to block all business in the Senate if the Republicans succeed in returning the rules to where they were and as they were applied for some 200 years. They will then become the party of obstructionism and I hope their sorry asses will be tossed out of the senate by the voters in the next election.

Every judicial appointee by the president of either party deserves nothing less than a up and down vote in the senate IMO.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Troll
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 01:48 PM

It is rather strange to hear Sen. Byrd defending the filibusyer option which he so vehemently opposed during the Clinton years.

What goes around...

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 17 Mar 05 - 01:27 PM

well strictly speaking the nuclear option - is with respect to ending filibusters on judicial appointments, since what is required is a yes or no vote, and there is no way to compromise (as you might on some other bills).
Filibusters would still continue to be an option, but not with judicial appointments. (It may be argued that it would end the option to filibuster though, and this cuts both ways,
one day when the democrats will be on top, hard as it may be to believe that day will come, the republicans will wish they still had the filibuster option.

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 09:46 PM

Thanks, brucie... Them is some fine stuff....

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Sorcha
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 08:26 PM

Well, actually I'm pretty scared........but naught much to do about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 08:01 PM

Ha! Ha! Ha! I am sooo glad I live in Canada...

Eat your heart out, Doug R. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Peace
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 07:47 PM

I know you'll love this Bobert.

Subject: RE: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 07:33 PM

Yep. And now they have passed the ANWR drilling option. By tacking it onto the budget bill so that the question could not be filibustered.

Subject: BS: Fillibusters and the Nuclear Option...
From: Bobert
Date: 16 Mar 05 - 07:30 PM

Well, well, well...

Seems that the Repubs are feeling their oats and now, and in spite of them using fillibusters to kill off dozens and dozens of Clinton's judical appointments 10 years ago, now want to strip the Dem's of the same tool, is spite of the fact that Dems have approved over 90% of Bush's appointments...

What do you think?

Bobert