TedTAce From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 1, posted (8 years 4 weeks 21 hours ago) and read 1194 times:
Quoting ACAfan (Thread starter): I know very little on this topic and I hope you could enlighten me as to what the fuss is all about.
I'm right here with you on this one. I'd be surprised if anyone here (without looking it up online) can name a judge being held up. As far as what is wrong with them? I'm sure it's the same thing that's wrong with Democratic nominees, just opposite.
Priscilla Owen - She makes Alberto Gonzales look like an absolute pussy (my words, not saveour courts.org). She is the most extremely conservative member of the Texas Supreme Court, which is in itself one of the most conservative courts in the nation. She consistantly sides with big business over workers rights. Owen wrote or joined opinions that severely limited the ability of workers to recover for on-the-job injuries. These include Texas Workers Compensation Commission v. Garcia, where she upheld a law that restricted the right to jury trial for certain aspects of work-related claims brought by injured workers; Lawrence v. CDB Services, Inc., where she upheld the right of employers to seek from their employees, in exchange for certain medical and death benefits, waivers of their right to sue for workplace injuries; and Sonnier v. Chisholm-Ryder, where she issued a dissent that interpreted statutory law in a way which would have broadly protected manufacturers from liability for injuries caused by equipment they manufactured.
Janice Rogers Brown - A review of California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown's record to date raises serious questions and grave concerns about her persistent and disturbing hostility to affirmative action, civil rights, the rights of people with disabilities, workers' rights, and criminal rights. In addition, Brown has often been the lone justice to dissent on the California Supreme Court, illustrating that her judicial philosophy is outside the mainstream. Not only does she show an inability to dispassionately review cases, her opinions are based on extremist ideology that ignores judicial precedent, including that set by the U.S. Supreme Court.
William Myers - in the amicus brief he authored in the case of Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC) v. Army Corps of Engineers, 531 U.S. 159 (2001), Myers advocated a very limited view of Congressional power under the Commerce Clause - a view with implications far beyond the environmental policy field. Diminishing congressional authority under the Commerce Clause is a primary goal of the so-called "states' rights" movement that seeks to limit the power of Congress to enact legislation that protects our civil and constitutional rights. Myers' argument in SWANCC could be used to strike down a broad range of federal laws protecting the health, safety, and civil rights of all Americans. In addition to his views on the limited power of the Commerce Clause to support Congressional authority, Myers has also argued for elevated protection for private property "rights" as a method to invalidate environmental and other governmental regulation. In Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities of Oregon, 515 U.S. 687 (1995), Myers filed an amicus brief that argued, among other things, that a regulation promulgated under the Endangered Species Act was unconstitutional because it violated cattle ranchers' property rights.
William Pryor - President Bush sidestepped the confirmation process and recess appointed William Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit on February 20, 2004. Pryor's record reveals him to be an ultra-conservative legal activist whose record disqualifies him from a lifetime appointment to the federal judiciary. As Alabama Attorney General, Pryor has demonstrated a commitment to rolling back the clock on federal protections against discrimination based on race, gender, age, and disability. He has pushed his extremist agenda not only through litigation in which Alabama was a party, but also by electing to file amicus briefs in cases in which Alabama was not involved, and through numerous public speeches that make clear that the ideological positions he has taken in these cases are his own.
Lowrider From United States of America, joined Jun 2004, 3220 posts, RR: 11 Reply 3, posted (8 years 4 weeks 20 hours ago) and read 1160 times:
In a nutshell, the Democrats find the judges politically unacceptable. They may be intelligent, accomplished, and highly qualified, but thier politics do nothing to advance the Democratic agenda. Instead of giving "advice and consent", these judges are being used as political leverage points. To be fair, the Republicans have done the same thing in the past, but I believe it was only on one, possibly two judges at any given time.
Mir From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 19725 posts, RR: 56 Reply 4, posted (8 years 4 weeks 18 hours ago) and read 1147 times:
Quoting Lowrider (Reply 3): Instead of giving "advice and consent", these judges are being used as political leverage points.
Here's one thing I don't get:
If Congress is, like many say on here, supposed to "consent" to the appointments, what the hell is the point of asking them anyway if what they're supposed to do is say yes? Why not just rubberstamp it right away and save ourselves the media trouble?
It's because Congress has every right to say no, or otherwise show that they do not consent to a certain nominee. It's part of the checks and balances system to prevent the President from appointing whomever he sees fit to whatever post he wants. If the democrats don't think someone would serve America well in a certain post (or the republicans for that matter), they can say no.
-Mir
7 billion, one nation, imagination...it's a beautiful day
S12PPL From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 5, posted (8 years 4 weeks 18 hours ago) and read 1132 times:
Uh, can we say right wing nut jobs???
The last thing we need is our civil rights being yanked away from us by these guys. I can see it now:
Within a week of them getting appointed, we see Roe V. Wade get over turned.
Bush, and all his followers have an easy time passing any legislation that the majority doesn't want. What a sad future for this country if they make it in...
Falcon84 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 6, posted (8 years 4 weeks 17 hours ago) and read 1131 times:
Quoting Lowrider (Reply 3): To be fair, the Republicans have done the same thing in the past, but I believe it was only on one, possibly two judges at any given time.
To be fair, Bush has had less judges blocked than Mr. Clinton had. If you're going to be fair ,be fair.
The big difference is that for most of Clinton's term, he had a Republican majority to deal with, so the fillabuster didn't apply. In this case, you have a President, putting up extremist candidate for the bench, with a Rubber-Stamp majority in the Senate, if only the fillabuster would go away.
In other words, it's a steamroll that's being built by the GOP. Nominees will not be debated-they would be rubber-stamped. That, my friends, is why the fillabuster should stay. It prevents such rubber stamping.
Pope From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 7, posted (8 years 4 weeks 6 hours ago) and read 1093 times:
Falcon if we're really going to be fair why don't we address appointments to the appeals courts. The figure that only 10 out of 200 appointments have been blocked is deceiving (lies, damn lies and statistics). Everyone knows that the really important appointments are to the appeals bench because these are the guys that (1) really make law and (2) are in line for the Supreme Court. The lower federal district court rulings do not establish precedent and therefore do not make common law. Only rulings by higher courts can do this.
Take a look at this website for figures on confirmation % for appelate court appointments http://dalythoughts.com/index.php?p=2983. It provides historical data going back to the Turman presidency and links to the underlying data so that you can confirm the figures yourself.
The confirmation percentage for appeals courts nominees are 53.1% of W's appointments were confirmed durign his first term versus 86.3% of Clinton's appointments. During the first and part of the second term the overall figures are 52.2% and 71.4% respectively.
Now what is absolutely amazing is that notwithstanding the fact that Clinton had to deal with a Senate controlled by the GOP during 6 of his 8 years in office, the GOP confirmed a greater percentage of his nominees than what the Democrats have allowed in a GOP controlled Senate with a Republican president. So who is really the party playing politics with judicial nominees, the GOP or the democrats? The facts speak for themselves.
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