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Frist Hardens Effort to Stop Filibusters
Sunday, April 24, 2005 9:13 PM EDT
The Associated Press
By DAVID ESPO
Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday it was not "radical" to ask senators to vote on judicial nominees as he hardened his effort to strip Democrats of their power to stall President Bush's picks for the federal court.
Frist, speaking at an event organized by Christian groups trying to rally churchgoers to support an end to judicial filibusters, also said judges deserve "respect, not retaliation," no matter how they rule.
A potential candidate for the White House in 2008, the Tennessee Republican made no overt mention of religion in the brief address, according to his videotaped remarks played on giant television screens to an audience estimated at 5,000 in Louisville, Ky.
Instead, Frist seemed intent on steering clear of the views expressed by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and other conservatives in and out of Congress who have urged investigations and even possible impeachment of judges they describe as activists.
"Our judiciary must be independent, impartial and fair," said Frist, who was not present at the event.
"When we think judicial decisions are outside mainstream American values, we will say so. But we must also be clear that the balance of power among all three branches requires respect _ not retaliation. I won't go along with that," Frist said.
For months, Frist has threatened to take action that would shut down the Democrats' practice of subjecting a small number of judicial appointees to filibusters. Barring a last-minute compromise, a showdown is expected this spring or summer.
"I don't think it's radical to ask senators to vote. I don't think it's radical to expect senators to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities," said Frist, whom Democrats have accused of engaging in "radical Republican" politics.
"Either confirm the nominees or reject them," Frist said. "Don't leave them hanging."
While a majority of the Senate is sufficient to confirm a judge, it takes 60 votes under Senate rules to overcome a filibuster and force a final vote.
Rather than change the rules directly, Frist and other Republicans have threatened to seek an internal Senate ruling that would declare that filibusters are not permitted against judicial nominees.
Because such a ruling can be enforced by majority vote, and Republicans have 55 seats in the 100-member Senate, GOP leaders have said they expect to prevail if they put the issue to the test.
Democrats blocked 10 appointments in Bush's first term. The president has renominated seven of the 10 since he won re-election, and Democrats have threatened to filibuster them again.
Republicans pushed two of the nominees _ including Texas Supreme Court Judge Priscilla Owen _ from the Senate Judiciary Committee last week on party-line votes.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., raised the possibility of a deal. "I think we should compromise and say to them that ... we'll let a number" of the seven judges "go through, the two most extreme not go through and put off this vote and compromise," he said on ABC's "This Week."
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is open to compromise, his spokesman said Sunday. "There's lot of concern among Republicans about the road Senator Frist is leading the Senate down," Jim Manley said.
In his remarks, Frist singled out Owen for praise, possibly indicating she will become the test case for the expected showdown. She has been nominated for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Frist said that "even though a majority of senators support her, she has been denied an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate. ... Justice Owen deserves better. She deserves a vote."
The majority leader noted that some Republicans are opposed to ending judicial filibusters, fearing that the GOP may someday want to use the same tactics against appointments made by a Democratic president.
"That may be true. But if what Democrats are doing is wrong today, it won't be right for Republicans to do the same thing tomorrow," Frist said.
Republicans held a Senate majority for six of President Clinton's eight years in office and frequently prevented votes on his court appointments by bottling them up in the committee, knowing the nominees would be confirmed if allowed to go to a vote by the full Senate.
One nominee, Richard Paez, a district court judge when he was nominated, waited more than four years before being confirmed to the appeals court. Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said Frist supported a filibuster of Paez's nomination. "I guess Senator Frist wasn't running for president then," Leahy told CNN's "Late Edition."
The Louisville event _ "Justice Sunday: Stop the Filibuster Against People of Faith" _ was held in a church and was sponsored by the Family Research Council.
Critics, including a number of ministers and Democratic politicians, said holding the event in a church was inappropriate.
At one of several rallies in the city on Sunday afternoon, about 100 protesters sat on the steps of the Jefferson County Courthouse as public officials voiced their dissent.
During another protest, several hundred people gathered at a Presbyterian church where progressive religious leaders condemned Frist and others for using the pulpit to spread a political message.
But Tony Perkins, president of the group organizing the event, told Fox that "what this boils down to is that the philosophy of that minority of liberal senators in the United States Senate has been repudiated in almost election after election, almost every recent election."
During Sunday's event, names, photographs and office phone numbers of senators were flashed across the TV screens. Perkins asked those in the church and others watching a nationwide simulcast to call the senators and ask them to end the filibuster.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, second-ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said, "I think what this group has done has become unfortunately entirely too political." Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the council should not question Democrats' faith or call them religious bigots.
"I don't think that helps the country and I don't think it's fair," Graham said.
Link
Bill Frist gives a Bundesrally at church! Seig Hie...or Praise Gawd!
Frist speaks to Christian anti-filibuster rally
Other religious leaders call rally a false union of faith, politics
_________________________________________
Monday, April 25, 2005 Posted: 5:01 AM EDT (0901 GMT)
Frist addresses a crowd at a Christian rally Sunday to end judicial filibusters.
(CNN) -- Conservative Christian leaders used a nationally televised rally Sunday night to urge an end to Democratic filibusters against several of President Bush's nominees for federal judgeships.
In the rally, sponsored by the Family Research Council, one of the leaders called the congressional tactic of delaying debate, or blocking legislation, "judicial tyranny to people of faith."
"The future of democracy and ordered liberty actually depends on the outcome of this struggle," Focus on the Family founder James Dobson told the crowd at the "Justice Sunday" rally at a church in Louisville, Kentucky.
A prominent target for criticism was Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Democrats have used the filibuster threat to block 10 of President Bush's 205 picks for district and appellate court positions -- or 5 percent. They have objected to the nominees in question as being too conservative.
The Family Research Council is a conservative Christian organization that attempts to "shape public debate and formulate public policy that values human life and upholds the institutions of marriage and the family," according to a statement on its Web site.
Among those who spoke to the rally was Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. In videotaped remarks, he told supporters he was willing to use the Republican majority to change Senate rules to prevent filibusters of judicial nominees.
"My Democratic counterpart, Senator Reid, calls me a radical Republican," said Frist, a Tennessee Republican and possible presidential candidate in 2008. "I don't think it's radical to ask senators to vote. I don't think it's radical to expect senators to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities. I don't think it's radical to restore precedents that worked so well for 214 years."
According to the U.S. Senate's Web site, the term filibuster is derived from the Dutch word meaning "pirate," and it's applied to efforts to hold the Senate floor in order to prevent action on a bill.
A three-fifths vote in the Senate -- 60 -- is needed to end a filibuster. But if the filibuster is eliminated, only 51 votes would be needed to confirm a judicial nominee.
Republicans hold 55 seats and Democrats 44, with one independent.
Opposition to 'Justice Sunday'
FRC President Tony Perkins said Democrats were using filibusters to exclude religious believers from the bench. Holding up a Bible, he told the audience, "What we are saying tonight is that as American citizens, we should not have to choose between believing what is in this book and serving the public."
And Dobson, whose commentaries are carried on about 3,500 U.S. radio stations, called the filibusters "unconstitutional" and "inappropriate." He said Bush's re-election in November means he gets to pick who sits on the courts.
"We sent a message to Washington that there was a concern over the judiciary," he said. "It was talked about often during the campaign. And yet now, a minority of members of the Senate -- the Democrats, essentially, and about six or eight very squishy Republicans -- are determined to prevent that influence from being felt on the court."
Frist's participation in the event drew fire from Democrats and hundreds of religious leaders, who accused Christian conservatives of raising unsubstantiated allegations of religious persecution.
Four hundred thirty religious leaders from across the country signed a letter to protest Sunday's rally. And the FRC rally prompted opposition rallies, including one in Louisville.
"What we detect instead is the work of a political organization using Christian language to exploit Americans' desire to preserve religious values by framing their political strategy in terms of religious liberty," wrote the Rev. Joe Phelps of Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, which held the opposition rally. "This is deceptive, manipulative, and false."
Viewers of the program -- subtitled "Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith" -- were urged to call senators like Republican John McCain of Arizona and Democrat Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut to support Frist and other Republicans in the standoff.
Democrats say they have filibustered or threatened the move against only those judges whose records suggest they are too far to the right. Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and a former chairman of the panel, said some have written some "pretty radical stuff."
Although decisions on abortion rights and same-sex marriage have drawn the most attention, he said, Democrats opposed six nominees because of their views on property rights.
"If you read what they've written and you read what others have written about those issues, you're talking about stopping the ability of county zoning facilities to be able to tell you you can't build a factory in the middle of a neighborhood unless you compensate the factory," the Delaware senator said on ABC's "This Week."
Frist has argued that no judicial nominee with majority support has ever been held up by a filibuster. Biden said that was "simply not true," citing Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, who was blocked from rising to chief justice in 1969, and subsequently quit the court.
Other Democrats noted that Republicans filibustered one of former President Bill Clinton's judicial nominees, and used different tactics to block numerous other Clinton picks.
The prospect of eliminating filibusters on judicial nominations has been dubbed the "nuclear option." Republicans have taken to calling it the "constitutional option," arguing that the Constitution requires that nominees receive an up-or-down vote.
Vice President Dick Cheney said Friday that he would cast a tie-breaking vote on the issue if needed, and Democrats say they would use procedural tactics to slow Senate business to a crawl if Republicans bring the matter to a head.
But while Frist and Reid have sparred publicly over the prospect of changing Senate rules, Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said the two leaders were still trying to negotiate a settlement to the dispute and get senators to move on some pending nominations.
"My Republican colleagues ought not to vote for the nuclear option as a matter of party loyalty, and the Democrats ought not to be voting in lockstep on filibusters as a matter of party loyalty," the Pennsylvania Republican said.
"And I think, if we voted our consciences, we wouldn't have filibusters, and we wouldn't have a nuclear option."
FRIST is the biggest load of shit on two feet at this point! How dare he play politics with God! Did Jesus really care about the American political process!?
Sunday, April 24, 2005 9:13 PM EDT
The Associated Press
By DAVID ESPO
Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday it was not "radical" to ask senators to vote on judicial nominees as he hardened his effort to strip Democrats of their power to stall President Bush's picks for the federal court.
Frist, speaking at an event organized by Christian groups trying to rally churchgoers to support an end to judicial filibusters, also said judges deserve "respect, not retaliation," no matter how they rule.
A potential candidate for the White House in 2008, the Tennessee Republican made no overt mention of religion in the brief address, according to his videotaped remarks played on giant television screens to an audience estimated at 5,000 in Louisville, Ky.
Instead, Frist seemed intent on steering clear of the views expressed by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and other conservatives in and out of Congress who have urged investigations and even possible impeachment of judges they describe as activists.
"Our judiciary must be independent, impartial and fair," said Frist, who was not present at the event.
"When we think judicial decisions are outside mainstream American values, we will say so. But we must also be clear that the balance of power among all three branches requires respect _ not retaliation. I won't go along with that," Frist said.
For months, Frist has threatened to take action that would shut down the Democrats' practice of subjecting a small number of judicial appointees to filibusters. Barring a last-minute compromise, a showdown is expected this spring or summer.
"I don't think it's radical to ask senators to vote. I don't think it's radical to expect senators to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities," said Frist, whom Democrats have accused of engaging in "radical Republican" politics.
"Either confirm the nominees or reject them," Frist said. "Don't leave them hanging."
While a majority of the Senate is sufficient to confirm a judge, it takes 60 votes under Senate rules to overcome a filibuster and force a final vote.
Rather than change the rules directly, Frist and other Republicans have threatened to seek an internal Senate ruling that would declare that filibusters are not permitted against judicial nominees.
Because such a ruling can be enforced by majority vote, and Republicans have 55 seats in the 100-member Senate, GOP leaders have said they expect to prevail if they put the issue to the test.
Democrats blocked 10 appointments in Bush's first term. The president has renominated seven of the 10 since he won re-election, and Democrats have threatened to filibuster them again.
Republicans pushed two of the nominees _ including Texas Supreme Court Judge Priscilla Owen _ from the Senate Judiciary Committee last week on party-line votes.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., raised the possibility of a deal. "I think we should compromise and say to them that ... we'll let a number" of the seven judges "go through, the two most extreme not go through and put off this vote and compromise," he said on ABC's "This Week."
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is open to compromise, his spokesman said Sunday. "There's lot of concern among Republicans about the road Senator Frist is leading the Senate down," Jim Manley said.
In his remarks, Frist singled out Owen for praise, possibly indicating she will become the test case for the expected showdown. She has been nominated for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Frist said that "even though a majority of senators support her, she has been denied an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate. ... Justice Owen deserves better. She deserves a vote."
The majority leader noted that some Republicans are opposed to ending judicial filibusters, fearing that the GOP may someday want to use the same tactics against appointments made by a Democratic president.
"That may be true. But if what Democrats are doing is wrong today, it won't be right for Republicans to do the same thing tomorrow," Frist said.
Republicans held a Senate majority for six of President Clinton's eight years in office and frequently prevented votes on his court appointments by bottling them up in the committee, knowing the nominees would be confirmed if allowed to go to a vote by the full Senate.
One nominee, Richard Paez, a district court judge when he was nominated, waited more than four years before being confirmed to the appeals court. Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said Frist supported a filibuster of Paez's nomination. "I guess Senator Frist wasn't running for president then," Leahy told CNN's "Late Edition."
The Louisville event _ "Justice Sunday: Stop the Filibuster Against People of Faith" _ was held in a church and was sponsored by the Family Research Council.
Critics, including a number of ministers and Democratic politicians, said holding the event in a church was inappropriate.
At one of several rallies in the city on Sunday afternoon, about 100 protesters sat on the steps of the Jefferson County Courthouse as public officials voiced their dissent.
During another protest, several hundred people gathered at a Presbyterian church where progressive religious leaders condemned Frist and others for using the pulpit to spread a political message.
But Tony Perkins, president of the group organizing the event, told Fox that "what this boils down to is that the philosophy of that minority of liberal senators in the United States Senate has been repudiated in almost election after election, almost every recent election."
During Sunday's event, names, photographs and office phone numbers of senators were flashed across the TV screens. Perkins asked those in the church and others watching a nationwide simulcast to call the senators and ask them to end the filibuster.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, second-ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said, "I think what this group has done has become unfortunately entirely too political." Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the council should not question Democrats' faith or call them religious bigots.
"I don't think that helps the country and I don't think it's fair," Graham said.
Link
Bill Frist gives a Bundesrally at church! Seig Hie...or Praise Gawd!
Frist speaks to Christian anti-filibuster rally
Other religious leaders call rally a false union of faith, politics
_________________________________________
Monday, April 25, 2005 Posted: 5:01 AM EDT (0901 GMT)
Frist addresses a crowd at a Christian rally Sunday to end judicial filibusters.
(CNN) -- Conservative Christian leaders used a nationally televised rally Sunday night to urge an end to Democratic filibusters against several of President Bush's nominees for federal judgeships.
In the rally, sponsored by the Family Research Council, one of the leaders called the congressional tactic of delaying debate, or blocking legislation, "judicial tyranny to people of faith."
"The future of democracy and ordered liberty actually depends on the outcome of this struggle," Focus on the Family founder James Dobson told the crowd at the "Justice Sunday" rally at a church in Louisville, Kentucky.
A prominent target for criticism was Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Democrats have used the filibuster threat to block 10 of President Bush's 205 picks for district and appellate court positions -- or 5 percent. They have objected to the nominees in question as being too conservative.
The Family Research Council is a conservative Christian organization that attempts to "shape public debate and formulate public policy that values human life and upholds the institutions of marriage and the family," according to a statement on its Web site.
Among those who spoke to the rally was Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. In videotaped remarks, he told supporters he was willing to use the Republican majority to change Senate rules to prevent filibusters of judicial nominees.
"My Democratic counterpart, Senator Reid, calls me a radical Republican," said Frist, a Tennessee Republican and possible presidential candidate in 2008. "I don't think it's radical to ask senators to vote. I don't think it's radical to expect senators to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities. I don't think it's radical to restore precedents that worked so well for 214 years."
According to the U.S. Senate's Web site, the term filibuster is derived from the Dutch word meaning "pirate," and it's applied to efforts to hold the Senate floor in order to prevent action on a bill.
A three-fifths vote in the Senate -- 60 -- is needed to end a filibuster. But if the filibuster is eliminated, only 51 votes would be needed to confirm a judicial nominee.
Republicans hold 55 seats and Democrats 44, with one independent.
Opposition to 'Justice Sunday'
FRC President Tony Perkins said Democrats were using filibusters to exclude religious believers from the bench. Holding up a Bible, he told the audience, "What we are saying tonight is that as American citizens, we should not have to choose between believing what is in this book and serving the public."
And Dobson, whose commentaries are carried on about 3,500 U.S. radio stations, called the filibusters "unconstitutional" and "inappropriate." He said Bush's re-election in November means he gets to pick who sits on the courts.
"We sent a message to Washington that there was a concern over the judiciary," he said. "It was talked about often during the campaign. And yet now, a minority of members of the Senate -- the Democrats, essentially, and about six or eight very squishy Republicans -- are determined to prevent that influence from being felt on the court."
Frist's participation in the event drew fire from Democrats and hundreds of religious leaders, who accused Christian conservatives of raising unsubstantiated allegations of religious persecution.
Four hundred thirty religious leaders from across the country signed a letter to protest Sunday's rally. And the FRC rally prompted opposition rallies, including one in Louisville.
"What we detect instead is the work of a political organization using Christian language to exploit Americans' desire to preserve religious values by framing their political strategy in terms of religious liberty," wrote the Rev. Joe Phelps of Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, which held the opposition rally. "This is deceptive, manipulative, and false."
Viewers of the program -- subtitled "Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith" -- were urged to call senators like Republican John McCain of Arizona and Democrat Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut to support Frist and other Republicans in the standoff.
Democrats say they have filibustered or threatened the move against only those judges whose records suggest they are too far to the right. Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and a former chairman of the panel, said some have written some "pretty radical stuff."
Although decisions on abortion rights and same-sex marriage have drawn the most attention, he said, Democrats opposed six nominees because of their views on property rights.
"If you read what they've written and you read what others have written about those issues, you're talking about stopping the ability of county zoning facilities to be able to tell you you can't build a factory in the middle of a neighborhood unless you compensate the factory," the Delaware senator said on ABC's "This Week."
Frist has argued that no judicial nominee with majority support has ever been held up by a filibuster. Biden said that was "simply not true," citing Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, who was blocked from rising to chief justice in 1969, and subsequently quit the court.
Other Democrats noted that Republicans filibustered one of former President Bill Clinton's judicial nominees, and used different tactics to block numerous other Clinton picks.
The prospect of eliminating filibusters on judicial nominations has been dubbed the "nuclear option." Republicans have taken to calling it the "constitutional option," arguing that the Constitution requires that nominees receive an up-or-down vote.
Vice President Dick Cheney said Friday that he would cast a tie-breaking vote on the issue if needed, and Democrats say they would use procedural tactics to slow Senate business to a crawl if Republicans bring the matter to a head.
But while Frist and Reid have sparred publicly over the prospect of changing Senate rules, Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said the two leaders were still trying to negotiate a settlement to the dispute and get senators to move on some pending nominations.
"My Republican colleagues ought not to vote for the nuclear option as a matter of party loyalty, and the Democrats ought not to be voting in lockstep on filibusters as a matter of party loyalty," the Pennsylvania Republican said.
"And I think, if we voted our consciences, we wouldn't have filibusters, and we wouldn't have a nuclear option."
FRIST is the biggest load of shit on two feet at this point! How dare he play politics with God! Did Jesus really care about the American political process!?
appears Orwellian! Not necessarily Frist himself! I mean isn't a bit creepy to haul large screens into a church and broadcast in politicians telling you what it is to be a good Christian?
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