This is not a chain letter for starts.
My question for Senate Republicans is: Why lower the standards for federal judges? I know I would like to see the best judges with main stream thinking sitting on the bench. Not extreme judges no matter if they are ultra liberal or ultra conservative. I am asking you to vote against the nuclear option.
Stand with the great Republican leadership like John McCain. Do not allow an abuse of power to happen under your watch. I just do not understand why we would want to lower the standards just to put worse judges on the bench. Why not lower it to 40 votes? Or 35? Heck if a third party gets into power and the senate is balanced the rules might have to be changed again to please who ever is in the White House. Maybe the majority party will set the standard to 35 to break a filibuster?
This is setting up a horrible precedent for the future of America.
Below I took an editorial from the Star Tribune. It was written "bi-partisan, wow" by Republican David Durenberger, and Democrat Walter Mondale.
Please do the right thing.
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The American people should know that the proposed repeal of the filibuster rule for judicial nominees by majority vote will profoundly and permanently undermine the purpose of the U.S. Senate as it has stood since Thomas Jefferson first wrote the Senate's rules. We join together, across party lines, in an urgent plea of support for the current Senate rules.
Today, as it has been for 200 years, an individual senator may talk without limit on an issue; and others may join in, and they may continue to press those issues until or unless the Senate by 60 votes ends that debate and a vote occurs. No other legislative body has such a rule.
Why? Well, the Senate, with two senators from each state, armed with six-year terms, was intended to provide broader geographical representation than was the House of Representatives. The Senate was expected to deliberate and debate, to weigh and ponder significant national issues and to advise and consent on presidential nominations.
Today's rules allow a screening of judges by the Senate. Most presidential nominees are confirmed, but there are always a few instances where the nominee is unable to obtain the Senate's approval. We think this process has been good for the judiciary and good for the country. This Senate rule has led to a stronger, less partisan, truly independent court. Weaknesses in judicial nominees are usually exposed in bipartisan Judiciary Committee hearings. If presidential pressure forces a partisan vote on the floor, you can often count on a bipartisan vote on the floor not to confirm. Both of us have seen this happen and value this exercise of checks and balances.
Partly as a result of such checks and balances, our Minnesota federal bench has been recognized for decades as among the strongest in the nation. Minnesotans nominated to the federal appellate bench have outstanding records and include Warren Burger, former Gov. Luther Youngdahl and Justice Harry Blackmun. In our time, two Minnesotans were nominated by Republican presidents to the Supreme Court and confirmed by Democratic Senate majorities. In 1979, with a Democratic president and Senate, and two Republican senators from Minnesota, we agreed that a "Minnesota balance" could best be struck if President Jimmy Carter nominated both Democrat Diana Murphy and Republican Robert Renner to District Court vacancies. All of these appointments were confirmed under the current debate rules that Senate leaders now want to eliminate.
If the Senate leadership repeals the debate rule based on Vice President Dick Cheney's pre-announced ruling, the Senate's ability to strike any "balance" will be compromised and the Senate will become a second partisan House of Representatives, where one-vote margins are too often a way of doing national business. This will diminish the status of each senator and it will lead to further discord in American public life. The courts will be seen less as independent tribunals that transcend politics and instead will become, increasingly, agents of political passions.
Franklin Roosevelt once wanted to pack the courts; fortunately, the Senate turned him down. President Ronald Reagan claimed the right to a new philosophy for judges based on then-popular themes. But a Republican Senate majority demanded and received an equal voice for senators in applying that judgment. American presidents are elected not by popular vote but by the Electoral College. It is up to the popularly elected Senate to strike the right balance in the exercise of its confirmation powers.
Now, this administration believes it should have a right that no president has ever had in our history, to demand that his judges be confirmed by a strict party-line whip system. The recent attacks on federal judges, many of whom already are conservative Republicans nominated and confirmed during 16 years of Republican presidents and 14 years of Republican Senate majorities, propose a new type of judge, compliant with religious and political tests that would radically undermine America's ideal of an independent judiciary.
America is blessed to have a superb federal bench. This didn't happen under the rash partisan system the changed rule will permit; it happened under the Senate's longstanding rules that allow the minority to have the power to delay and question each nominee. Both of us were a part of the Senate operating under the current rules of debate and we strongly advocate for their preservation.
Americans are already deeply concerned by the harshness and belligerence of American politics. Our federal courts are one of the few places left where issues are heard and rationally debated and decided under the law. Our courts have been a fundamental part of America's success. Our judges have succeeded not because they were enthusiastic agents of the current political power, but precisely because they were not; they represented the best and most balanced legal talent our nation could offer.
Let's keep it this way.
David Durenberger, a Republican, and former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, a Democrat, both served as U.S. senators from Minnesota.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/562/5385977.html
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