ConfirmThem

It's that everyone was in panic mode over Specter getting the chairmanship, and he's about the only one who's acted with any class. Frist and the GOP Gang of 7 have completedly caved in to pretty much every Dem piece of obstruction except on Alito and Roberts. We thought Specter wouldn't support the party; instead the party hasn't supported him. It's absolutely criminal.

The only thing I'd fault Specter on is not following through on blasting the ABA over Wallace, but what the heck he'd get filibustered through some means or another anyway, so who cares.

Always a font of good info, Andrew. Thanks. What it boils down to is that everybody is running for the tall grass while putting up a show of having tried to do something on judges. I am so sick of this excrement.

We have been hearing about action on The Controversial Five since late April. It now definitively appears that all of that has been nothing but lip service from Frist. As I have repeatedly said, if Frist had the votes to confirm The Controversial Five, he would've done it by now. The fact that he is afraid to bring those five up for a vote says he has never had the votes to confirm them. The White House now needs to move on. To start off with, they need to withdraw Myers and put up Smith in his place. Then, they need to replace the nominations of Boyle and Haynes. The only one who should be renominated as is happens to be Wallace. He needs to be used to bring the ABA back down to earth.

Given the fear of Frist to challenge the Dems (and some Republicans) on the Controversial Five, I am just wishing that Keisler gets confirmed ASAP.

bk (comment #1), maybe you shouldn't be so quick to praise Senator Specter. He's apparently allowed a committee filibuster to occur, which is something that Senator Hatch wouldn't tolerate when Hatch was chairman back in 2003. On the other hand, maybe Specter will come through like Hatch did. We'll see.

Hatch's actions were to get Pryor and Owen out of committee in 2003. Did they get confirmed? Not until two years later as part of the few allowed in by the Gof14.

IMHO Specter doesn't ened to kill himself when it's clear that the Dems will just kill everyone they want to on the floor while the Frist is off declaring victory over obstruction.

I can't wait to invoke the 1st Tuesday in November rule on all of these guys.

This is ridiculous...

bk (comment #5), first of all, if Specter is willing to interpret the rules so as to allow committee filibusters, then he will do so regarding ANY nominations. He cannot plausibly say that he's helpless to stop a committee filibuster of Boyle, while not helpless to stop a committee filibuster of the next Supreme Court nominee.

Secondly, saying that obstruction in the Judiciary Committee is okay for nominees who would be doomed anyway on the floor is silly. If reported out of Committee, someone like Boyle would then be on the Senate Calendar. Any Senator would then have the ability to make a non-debateable motion to consider the nomination, and then any sixteen senators could force a cloture vote. BOYLE HAS NEVER HAD A VOTE ON THE FLOOR OF THE SENATE, NOT EVEN A CLOTURE VOTE. Don't you think he's entitled to one? Even if the cloture vote is unsuccessful, it would put all Senators on record, and would expose the minority's continuing obstruction. It would give voters valuable insights as they head into the voting booth in November. And, it would make clear to the next GOP Majority Leader that he should not acquiesce (at the beginning of the next Congress) to Senate Rule 22.

At what point does a nomination become pointless? As you well know, controversial nominees become even more difficult to confirm during the last two years of a lame-duck presidency. Look at what happened in Clinton's last two years. How much more time and energy should the White House and Senate Republicans spend on Boyle, Myers and Haynes?

Although what has happened to Boyle and company is not fair and definitely sets a bad precedent, there is precious little time left to fight this battle. There could be some very damaging repercussions in the judicial wars if some of these controversial nominees are not replaced now.

Senate Republicans have made it obvious by their actions since the Gang of 14 deal that COA judges are a low-priority item for them. Without key Republican support, it is quite possible that Boyle, Myers and Haynes could remain in limbo for the next two years if their nominations are left standing. What would be the good of that if in the end President Hillary is allowed to fill those positions in 2009 with screaming liberals. I would rather have moderate conservatives replace Boyle and company now than wait to see Elena Kagan, Kathleen Sullivan or Cass Sunstein as their replacements in the future.

There's no reason to even think about withdrawing those nominations before the end of this congressional session. And until the end of this congressional session, it's perfectly reasonable to advocate for them. I don't intend to think about the next session until it arrives. We don't even know yet how many GOP Senators there will be.

will start with the suggestion that Arlen Specter be removed as chairman. He's clearly incompetent.

Anyone in a lame duck presidency with a thin majority will be (are) controversial if they are conservative.

Even Keisler is controversial now. To renominate will only start a new series of delay tactics and damaging character assisnations. The President should and will stand by his nominees- and when the timing is right they will be appointed or confirmed.

I resent that people would abandon the nominees as quickly as the Senators that they criticize.

Dear Senator,

I'm writing today as one of your constiuents asking you to request that Arlen Specter be removed as the chairman of the judiciary committee.

Today he allowed the Democrats to filibuster judges in the committee with the "two hour rule." This procedural ploy was done away with by Senator Orrin Hatch when he was the chairman.

It's time to remove Specter and get someone on the committee who will work to confirm the President's nominees.

I've pretty much given my last dollar to any Republican politician until I see that the leadership has the guts to play some hard ball with the Democrats.

On a personal note, I'd like to see you take the lead and file a motion to discharge Boyle, Smith, etc from the committee. This is something that any Senator can initiate.

You may also start planning which committees you want to be a minority member in, since the GOP apparently has no clue how to turn out its base.

Here's hoping things turn out differently, but we appear to be on the road to the minority thanks to the inaction of the GOP Senate majority.

Who abandoned whom first? The last time I looked, it was Frist who has spent the last two years refusing to bring Boyle, Myers and Haynes to a full vote on the Senate floor. Owen, JRB and Pryor were eventually confirmed because the Republican leadership in the Senate was willing to press their nominations with repeated votes. After the Gang of 14 deal, Frist abandoned this strategy. The way I see it, Frist and the Republicans in the Gang of 14 abandoned Boyle, Myers and Haynes first. All I am suggesting now is that if the Republican leadership remains too afraid of the Democrats to challenge them anymore on judges, the nominees in question need to be withdrawn.

I've added a second update to the post.

Since whatever the Dems agreed to give us as part of the gang deal, we fought for the two SC nominees and caved on just about everything else.

As it's turned out, we must have tossed about a dozen nominees under the bus as part of that deal.

People can gripe about Specter, but he's done a hell of a lot more than Frist has. Frist has been hiding under a rock, popping out occasionally to tell us how great a job he's done while doing absolutely diddly.

I think President Bush is on the right track by renominating returns. The GOP leadership in the Senate gets through as many as it can, and the balance remaining is a Senate shortcoming.

I object to replacement for the purpose of getting more approvals, because it is a more explicitly acceptance of the 60 vote threshold, and other shenanigans used to stifle reaching votes on nominees. By returning nominees to the Senate, the president is leaving a historical marker that might be useful to eliminate the Senate-created imbalance of power.

I'd be shocked if Leahy's response to Boyle and company isn't the same on Thursday.

I see a trade-off developing here. I bet the two parties' leaderships used today's meeting as a way of separating the nominations of Keisler and Jordan from Boyle and company. That way, the Dems can allow Keisler and Jordan out of committee in time for a vote without allowing the same for the others.

It seems to me that the Dems have agreed to confirm Keisler with two days worth of debate. That's why Keisler's hold had to be burned today - so he could be voted out in time for the optimal amount of debate before confirmation to appease their liberal base.

In return, the Republicans have agree not to force a full floor vote on Boyle and company before the election break. Coburn is probably well aware of this agreement and was in a subtle manner poking the Dems a little in the eye with his request. Leahy didn't like the unexpected change in the accepted script and responded in kind.

In my opinion the current blame is clearly placed at the feet of Republican leadership for not getting the five through. Frist is the figure head of the leadership, but until lately has been non-existent.

But, the administration (DOJ) was the first to abandon Boyle in my opinion and before that Pickering, Myers et al. It is no coincidence to me that Kavanaugh sailed through and Boyle was "borked." In fact, going back before that, Boyle was paired with Pricilla Owen who of course eventually got through. I know that politics requires compromise, and I am glad the two aforementioned are judges, but the Boyle situation is beyond ridiculous. A nominee should not be pulled because of the threat of a filibuster, without any vote, it would be a terrible precedent.

Boyle, Haynes, Myers, Smith and Wallace are being used as bait by their own party and it is simply sickening. These are the types of political maneuvers that deter good men and women from service.

This is truly pathetic. So Leahy threatens to talk for two hours? Well, then MAKE him do so.

Boyle has been royally screwed since '92, no doubt. But his nomination has been so badly bungled now, that I can't see any point in continuing with it, unless it can be traded once more, this time for Keisler.

He, Haynes, & Myers don't have 50 votes, Frist knows this, the WH must know this, and those three must know this. Just absolute madness, esp. w/Bush's poll numbers improving and the Nov outlook getting a bit better.

Yes, they all "should" get cloture/floor votes. They won't.

And they don't need to be replaced by moderates either. Smith & Myers should've been switched long ago. Are David Levi, Caleb Nelson, Curtis Bradley, et al, moderates?

Crazy, man. Crazy. Ya'll love seeing who might wind up eventually in these seats, as well as Luttig's.

"Despite the unwillingness of Senate Republicans to act on President Clinton’s nominees to the D.C. Circuit for years, Senate Democrats cooperated in the consideration of the nomination of now-Chief Justice John Roberts to the D.C. Circuit."

I just broke my LOL keys.

This is comical - our wonderful government at work! It boggles the mind how ineffectual these bozos are.

I'm a little bit more forgiving of Spector.

If Spector gave Leahy his word that this meeting would be about burning the holds on the non-controversial judges then he was right in letting Leahy's hold stand.

Otherwise, he would have broken his word for partisan advantage, something I expect of Dems but not GOPers.

Given that, let's hope we see some movement at Thursday's meeting on the other nominees. If there is a repeat of the filibuster at that meeting, well that's a different story.

The ABA updated its ratings yesterday for what its worth. Boyle and Randy Smith were re-rated at the same level (Q/WQ and WQ respectively). I am waiting to see if the ABA changes its biased rating of unqualified for Wallace. None of the recent district nominees were rated Unqualified.

http://www.abanet.org/scfedjud/ratings109.pdf

One change the WH could make is to switch Myers and Smith, which would probably add one more COA confirmation before the Senate adjourns. Myers is going nowhere, but Randy Smith shouldn't be sitting in that boat, too. Since Frist and the R's are too scared to make political hay out of this, at least get as many judges confirmed as possible.

Or better yet, pull Myers in exchange for Smith's immediate confirmation, and agreement to confirm Levi in the lame duck.

The Agenda for tomorrow's business meeting is up. 16 nominees are on the agenda (6 Cir. Ct. and 10 District).

http://judiciary.senate.gov/meeting_notice.cfm?id=2342

would surely require a new set of full hearings wouldn't it?

At least that's what I'd expect our good friends Leahy and Kennedy and Schumer would demand.

"would surely require a new set of full hearings wouldn't it?

At least that's what I'd expect our good friends Leahy and Kennedy and Schumer would demand."

I don't think so, as Feinstein has stated she has no problem w/Smith personally, and implies she would vote for him to the "other Idaho seat".

It's a no-brainer.

since we're talking about the Democrats.

"It's a no-brainer."