Reports NBC First Read: “Fueling anticipation of an imminent move by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-TN, to eliminate the filibuster, the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote to send two more judicial nominees to the floor today, state supreme court justices Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen, both of whom have been filibustered before. But Frist will probably wait until after his Sunday telecast to Christian conservatives to pull the trigger.” More on the nominees, action steps, DeLay’s delays, and DFA’s winning DeLay billboard (it’s great!) — below:
Today’s Los Angeles Times lays out the pressure on Frist:
“On this issue conservatives are not in a mood to be forgiving. It’s show time and Bill Frist must deliver,” Lessner said.
Strategists say social conservatives don’t fully trust Frist and are more favorably inclined toward three GOP Senate colleagues seen as potential presidential contenders: Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Sam Brownback of Kansas and George Allen of Virginia.
[…….]
Prevailing in the fight over the filibuster is not without risks for Frist.
“If Frist thinks doing this is going to make him the first choice of cultural and social conservatives, he’s wrong,” said Charles Cook, an independent political analyst. “His natural constituency is country club Republicans who are put off by what he’s doing. And I think he’s driving his campaign into the ground.”
On the judicial nominees, the LA Times reports:
They view Brown as a conservative ideologue who frequently sides with business and property owners against consumers and individuals.
Democrats raise questions about Owen’s stand on abortion, accusing her of improperly imposing barriers on minors seeking an abortion without parental notification.
Both are popular with conservatives. Brown is African American, and Republicans say privately that they relish the idea of doing battle with Democrats over a minority nominee.
TAKE ACTION on the judicial nominees:
TAKE ACTION on the nuclear option:
_______________________________________________
On Tom DeLay, NBC First Read also reports:
TAKE ACTION on DeLay:
- Visit DroptheHammer.org for action and info.
This is the winning slogan for a billboard contest sponsored by Democracy for America. Now, says DFA, “the next step is simple—if you want to see this billboard in Tom DeLay’s backyard, give a few dollars to put it up.”
Then there’s this sobering quote provided by Seattle blogger Howie Martin:
– Noam Chomsky, from “Chomsky: It’s time to take back our lives,” Jerry Large’s column today in the Seattle Times. No you’re not dreaming, this is something on Chomsky in the Seattle Times. [Chomsky spoke in Seattle last night.]
Is Chomsky right? Does it matter what WE think about Frist, DeLay, etc.? Or are we “helpless”? (Sometimes I do feel like that.)
I had done some research on Bush’s judicial nominee’s for a LTE…can’t seem to find the letter that I submitted, but here is some fun detail that came from that research.
Priscilla Owen– Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
President Bush first nominated Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen during the 107th Congress. She received a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which eventually declined her nomination. In early January 2003, a coalition of civil rights groups wrote a letter to President Bush, urging him not to renominate Justice Owen, in part because her opinions “reveal a troubling hostility to discrimination and employee rights.” (Texas Ad Hoc Coalition on Judicial Nominees)
Another observer noted that “her judicial record suggests strongly that she lacks a commitment to equal access to justice for all.” (Alliance for Justice) One civil rights group cited a case in which her narrow interpretation of a statute permitted age discrimination, despite the fact that the majority of the Texas Supreme Court found the statute “unambiguous” in banning age discrimination. Commentators note that, even on the conservative Texas Supreme Court, Owen is far to the right of mainstream.
Here is the kicker: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a former Texas state supreme court associate, once described Owen’s attempt to legislate from the bench in a case involving reproductive rights as “an unconscionable act of judicial activism.” Now folks that is a hoot!
Nearly 40 organizations, including the NAACP, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Women’s Law Center, the National Council of Jewish Women, and the National Employment Lawyers Association, oppose Owen’s nomination.
Janice Rogers Brown for D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
Despite opposition from nearly 80 national organizations and more than 200 law professors and legal academicians, President Bush nominated Janice Rogers Brown for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in July 2003. As a judge on the California Supreme Court, Brown consistently demonstrated hostility to affirmative action, civil rights, and the rights of disabled individuals, workers, prisoners, and women, according to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
In an affirmative action case in California, a fellow Republican-appointed justice, despite concurring with the result of the case, described her view as “a serious distortion of history.” In that case, not only did Brown issue a lengthy opinion opposing affirmative action programs, but she also strongly condemned Supreme Court decisions that had upheld such programs in the public sector, even in limited circumstances. Several of Brown’s statements disclosed during her confirmation hearing led one former supporter, Stephen Barnett, a University of California law professor emeritus, to rescind his support. Brown was criticized for engaging in “government-bashing” and presenting “extreme and outdated ideological positions” that are “outside the mainstream of today’s constitutional law.” In one speech, criticizing government programs, she stated that the federal government is “the opiate of the masses [and a drug for] multinational corporations and single moms, for regulated industries and Midwestern farmers and militant senior citizens.”
So, this is leaving me really puzzled. Gonzales refers to Owen as a “judicial activist” and everybody and their mother cites Brown for “government bashing”, but these are the plums that Bush has his thumb stuck in?
Super! I was hoping you and others would have the goods on these awful nominees.
Novak misrepresented Byrd’s action to falsely claim precedent for “nuclear option”
http://mediamatters.org/items/200504210009