The Nuclear Option: Advise and consent is a two-way street

[Montauk6]

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/04/26/EDGL7CDUF21.DTL&type=printable
(in case link is broken, full story below)

Authors: Maria Blanco, Eva Paterson
Published: Tuesday, April 26, 2005


Even in today's polarized environment, it is almost impossible to imagine that one political party would attempt to alter fundamentally our judicial system in order to bring it in line with its ideological stance.

But that is exactly what Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is doing with his "nuclear option" to eliminate the 200-year-old Senate filibuster in order to stack the federal courts, and ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court. This extreme maneuver by Frist and other Senate Republicans would remove the last remaining roadblock in their reshaping of the courts. Senate Democrats have deftly and judiciously used the filibuster to prevent the appointment of judges who believe in the protection of business at any cost, even at the expense of individual rights, civil rights and the environment.

Because the filibuster was prominently used by the Dixiecrats to blockade key civil-rights legislation in the 1950s and '60s, people may be surprised to learn that civil-rights advocates delivered more than a million signatures to the Senate earlier this month in support of the filibuster, calling it an "integral tool in our democracy" and "one of the best checks on complete power in our system."

Yet, as civil-rights lawyers and activists who grew up during the civil- rights movement, we have no doubt that the Republican leadership's maneuvers in the Senate to remove the filibuster would ultimately dismantle our hard-won civil-rights laws and the federal judiciary that enforces them. The real target of the Republican overreach is not the filibuster; it is the federal courts' mandate and ability to act independently.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

[Demit]

1. Good piece. And that is an interesting fact re the Democratic minority--

According to the July 2004 census:

the current 44 Dem Senators represent 148,026,027 Americans;
the current 55 Repub Senators represent 144,765,157
independent Senator Jeffords represents 310,000.

--Something I copied/pasted recently. I forget the source, but it also said this:

"If not for the illegal redistricting of the house of representatives by DeLay, the republicans wouldn't even control the house."


Helps put things in perspective, no?

[Moderator]

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