ConfirmThem

For a partisan site, the summary of Specter's comments sound pretty objective.

If there's a committee vote, maybe Senator Leahy will be statesmanlike, and acknowledge that Judge Southwick's vote in the n-word case was reasonable and not any indication of racial insensistivity, Senator Reid's recent speech to the contrary notwithstanding.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/26/opinion/26smith.html?ei=5090&en=cd4a1c...

The New York Times is recommending that a new Dem president and congress should ADD to the number of justices on the Supreme Court, "if the current five-man majority persists in thumbing its nose at popular (i.e. liberal) values." This leftist hysteria is getting way out of hand.

Senator Durbin spoke against the Southwick nomination (with gross lies and mischaracterizations);
Senator Cornyn rebutted Durbin for at pages 9882-3 in the midst of the appropriations debate; and
Senater Specter also rebutted Durbin, at pages 9883-6.

I just read it too. It is one of the most idiotic, ignorant, and apparently dishonest things I've read in a long time.

Yet another reason to vote for the R nominee, regardles if he's your top choice. Although, this could be filibustered, but who are we kidding. 55 R senators could barely muster much....

http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjQyNDEwNWQ0YWMzMmNiMjdlNGMyZGMw...

"Announcing that he is “prepared to go to the mat for Southwick,” Senator Specter will be holding a Senate press conference at noon today to present the case for confirmation of Judge Leslie Southwick’s nomination to the Fifth Circuit."

If anyone will be attending, please give us an update ASAP. Thanks.

On C-Span2, McConnell (12:10 pm) is talking about Southwick.

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/53_13/news/19561-1.html

"GOP Senate leaders are looking to re-enlist members of the bipartisan “Gang of 14” to help break the impasse over the stalled appellate court nomination of Leslie Southwick, a move that has temporarily delayed Republican plans to make the appointee ground zero for a major Senate rematch over the federal bench."

Does anyone have a RollCall subscription? If possible, it would be great is someone could copy and paste the full article.

The Dems signed up before to make sure there was no chance rules got changed to eliminate the judicial filibuster. What would they have to gain now when they control the rules?

I wonder what the RollCall article has to say. The beginning sounds as if the Senate Republicans will NOT be closing down the Senate yet over Southwick. I'm not sure why Specter is courting the Dem members of the Gang (Joe Lieberman, Robert Byrd, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Daniel Inouye, Mark Pryor and Ken Salazar) to help on Southwick. None of them are on the SJC and none are strong enough in their own party to force Reid and the liberals (Kennedy, Biden, Feingold, Schumer, Durbin, Clinton, Feinstein, Boxer, Kerry) to reconsider Southwick. In general, I would assume that the only Gang members he could even get on his side are Nelson, Landrieu and Pryor. Byrd is iffy, and Salazar has never really supported a conservative judge outside of William Pryor, whom he knew as a state attorney general. Inouye and Lieberman are too liberal to support Southwick.

The NYT's reasoning is so specious that one hardly knows where to begin. While the number of justices did fluctuate in the 19th century, the present number of nine had become virtually enshrined by the early 20th century, as the events of 1937 proved. While FDR's plan was indeed too clever by half, that was not the fundamental reason that it was so roundly rejected. The American people were not ready to tolerate such bald manipulation and usurpation of the Supreme Court by another branch of government for political purposes. Not even by the FDR-Democrat juggernaut of 1937-38.

This editorial further demonstrates how over-the-top leftist the national Democrat Party has gone. I am surprised by nothing they do anymore: they are capable of almost any depradation. Do you understand now? NOTHING IS BEYOND THEM IN THEIR QUEST FOR POWER.

If Hillary and a Dem. Congress are elected in 2008, they will try this, believe me. And if it doesn't work, they will try to IMPEACH Alito, Roberts or maybe Thomas. That's what they've been laying the groundwork for with these "broken promises" attacks in recent weeks. Actually, I expected them to try to impeach Thomas after Clinton was elected in 1992. Perhaps they didn't because they unexpectedly lost Congess in 1994, or perhaps because the Far Left takeover was nowhere near as advanced as now, when the Democrat Party has become the party of Subversion and Virtual Treason.

Mark my words, they will try it if they have the power in 2009. The New York Times, their official mouthpiece, has just told us so (and please don't tell me it was "just an Op-Ed").

Couldn't the R filibuster the proposed new number of SCOTUS justices? How many votes does it take to impeach a SCOTUS justice? Is it just the Senate that is involved both of these?

Yes, the Republicans could filibuster both a bill increasing the number of SCOTUS justices and/or the confirmation of any new judicial nominees resulting from such an increase. Then, the question becomes whether or not the Dems would use the nuclear option to get rid of the filibuster permanently in order to achieve their goals for the Supreme Court.

Procedurally, the first step in the removal of a judge is when the House of Representatives impeaches (i.e. indicts) the judge. Then there is a trail in the Senate, and a Senate vote on whether or not the judge is guilty as charged.

Well, we know they won't filibuster any D appointee, no matter how far left, not that's that bad. They should vote. But for payback, they should pick and choose, like the D, and then do it. But, they will gladly vote for them all.

Now, if they filibuster a move to increase SC justices, would the D use the constitutional option? It's not a filibuster of a nominee, but to add more justices to the court itself. I don't know if you remember, but in the summer of '05 they were saying that when FDR tried to pack the Court, the Congress said no. Actually, that is misleading, b/c there wren't opening. He wanted to add justices to the court. You could get hours and hours of audio/video of them saying that and use that against them. Packing the court is fine if there are openings. That's what a President is charged to do.

Finally, is the House involved in adding justices to the Court. At least if we have that, and it is involved, it won't be done.

http://www.afj.org/for-students/events/2007-intern-lunch.html

I wonder if he contrasted Judge Frank Johnson with the racists like Southwick Bush is trying to stack the court with today. You can picture him saying something about how he's fighting "an attempt to turn back the clock to the days of segregation" or some dreck like that.

In a situation where there is a Dem president with both houses of congress controlled by the Dems, it could be quite easy procedurally for the Dems to pass a law increasing the number of judges. Because of House rules, even if there is just one more Dem than Republican in the 111th Congress, it would be easy for the Dems to get the House to pass a bill increasing the number of justices. The only way then that such an increase could be stopped would be by a Republican filibuster in the Dem-controlled Senate. It is at that point that the Dems could over-rule this legislative filibuster with the nuclear option.

A judicial filibuster would only come into play concerning the confirmation any new SCOTUS nominees resulting from this increase IF such a filibuster hasn't already been over-ruled as part of the destruction of the legislative filibuster done earlier in the passage of the law actually changing the number of judges on the Supreme Court.

Right. So if the R filibuster the increase of the justices, the D would nuke that and then probably the filibuster of the nominees one could infer b/c if they would do that, then they know more nominees are coming.

How many votes does it take to convict a judge/justice and in the Senate? Is it 67 or a majority?

I'm not sure what you're saying. If the Dems eliminate the filibuster in order to get an increase in the number of SCOTUS justices passed and signed by a Dem president, then there cannot be any Republican filibuster of the candidates nominated by the Dem president to fill those extra slots. The judicial filibuster would've probably been destroyed at the same time as the legislative filibuster. Therefore, it would be quite easy for the Dems to confirm a lot of raging liberals to the Supreme Court with the Republicans unable to stop it.

It takes a 2/3rds majority or 67 Senate votes to remove any federal judge (or SCOTUS justice).

Thanks for the help. You answered my questions.