You know that during President Bush’s first term, the Senate confirmed 204 out of 214 of his judicial nominees, a rate far in excess of all of his predecessors. President Bush has appointed 24% of all active federal judges and 20% of all Circuit Court judges; so, to claim that the power invested in the Executive to appoint members of the judiciary is somehow being denied by the use of the filibuster by the minority of the Senate is disingenuous, at best, and, at worst, a lie to the American public.
The Advice and Consent power, which the Framers of the Constitution vested in the Senate, the upper house of Congress, is working well, despite what the detractors of the Article II, Section 2, powers claim. The Hon. Orrin Hatch, former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, so honestly pointed out that “conducting a fair confirmation process most assuredly does not mean granting the president carte blanche in filling the federal judiciary.”
Amendment of the cloture rule as it relates only to judicial nominations, as proposed by Senator Bill Frist and his core cadre of supporters eviscerates the opposition. There were reasons that the Framers of the Constitution required that Senators be older than their Congressional brethren in the House of Representatives. There were reasons that the Framers of the Constitution allowed that Senators serve six-year terms unlike their Congressional brethren in the House of Representatives. The Framers obviously felt that Senators would be the steady, guiding, mature, and reasoned force in the government, serving through Presidential four-year terms, lending stability and continuity to the government with experienced policy-makers.
Senator Frist has no sense of history and no foresight. He is less interested in the goals of the democratic process, as envisioned and practiced by the esteemed members of United States Senate for 200 years, and more interested in his own limited agenda, which will have generation-lasting effects on the reasoned democratic process of the Senate and the country as a whole.
The filibuster has served the Senate and the American people well over the past two centuries as an element of the checks and balances system by promoting bipartisan compromise and moderation, which is the hallmark of this democratic government. Certain interests of a partisan majority of lawmakers are not always identical to the interests of the majority of the citizens of the country and may be antithetical to the democratic process.
I urge you to vote for history and tradition and vehemently oppose Bill Frist's change in the cloture rule as it relates to judicial nominations.
[Now, they are going to read the post below and think that the guy who wrote this is a real whack-o ...]
Posted by Bill at May 15, 2005 10:52 AM