NYT:Despite GOP Gain, Fight over Judges Remains(can't break filibuster)

Despite G.O.P. Gain, Fight Over Judges Remains
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Published: November 5, 2004


....The Senate, (Senator Arlen) Specter said, would be unlikely to approve "judges who would change the right of a woman to choose.'' On Thursday, as outraged conservatives demanded that the Senate block Mr. Specter's rise to the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the senator issued a statement clarifying those remarks....

***

The controversy suggests that, despite talk of a political mandate, the long-running battle over federal judgeships will be in full bloom when the new Congress convenes next year under strengthened Republican control. Although Republicans made significant gains on Election Day, their majority of 55 senators still falls five votes short of the 60 needed to break a Democratic filibuster.

"The magic number in the Senate is 60, not 50," Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said in an interview. Mr. Schumer added, "If the president nominates people who are not part of the mainstream but who are far off, who will try to make law, not interpret it, and who will be way over to the ideological extreme, the controversy over judges will be alive."

But Senator Rick Santorum, another Pennsylvania Republican and a staunch opponent of abortion, said in a statement he looked forward to getting more judges approved....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/politics/campaign/05judges.html

Of the next four years.

...I feel the same way. THIS is the thing that scares me the most about the next four years.

Cheers,
Kim :toast:

But that's what's going to give this junta one party government the ammunition they need to blame democrats. Judges can always be impeached and removed. I say the senate dems just let them have their way. Let the mouthbreathers have what they want, and no one to blame when it turns sour.

If not, you'll be seeing everything from the economy to the disaster in Iraq blamed on 'obstructionist dems' in the senate.

the repukes would load the benches and then they would change the
rules.

they deserve whatever happens to their party.

one on this. It's going to be so damn difficult. The religiously insane will be going nuts over judges. The political pressure will be unbearable to many in the Senate. What about rational repugs -- libertarians and right center and such? We have 4 years of Hell ahead.

There's no way we'll gain new liberal voters from the younger generation if we waver on any of the issues that are supposedly important to us. The Rethugs are going to have to run a candidate in four years who, regardless of who it is, will not enjoy the teflon status of Bush. They will be beatable if we can battle out these four years and inspire people.

You all will remember that Arlen Specter was a key force in the confirmation of Clarence Thomas. Similarly, Specter was a spear carrier in confirmations of various conservative judges who got confirmed in the first term, AND he tarred Dems with obstruction mercilessly with those filibusters that were successful.
There are still Democratic senators who can be pealed off to weaken a filibuster. It only takes five gone to pass even the most conservative partisan hack into the Supreme Court.

I predict he will be Arafated in the very near future. Then my grand and glorious state of PA can elect another antiChrist like Rick Sanctimonious.

I'm not joking.

With Bush and Cheney as lame ducks and the new conservative Senators, Frist will drop the nuclear option: that filibustering judges is unconstitutional. With a disagreement, there will be a ruling from the chair and then a simple majority vote to accept/reject the chair's ruling (Cheney's ruling).

never vote again.

we still gotta worry about Lieberman

If he does that--which will be a complete outrage--we're screwed. He's already floated the possibility of doing so.

on edit: Is Frist still majority leader, or has Santorum replaced him in that position? Whichever one it is, they're talking about changing the rules so we can't filibuster.