UPDATE: The final vote was 78-22.
The Senate is voting today on the confirmation of John Roberts as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. The fix is in and he will be confirmed since not one Republican will cast a vote of conscience to oppose his nomination. This is a rubber stamp procedure for them. The fact that they’re all willing to vote for Roberts speaks volumes. Let’s hope Roberts proves them all wrong and turns out to be one of the most liberal justices ever. A gal can dream.
Watch or listen online on C-SPAN
Announced votes indicate the final vote will be 77-21.
I will post a list of Democrats voting against Roberts shortly.
Here they are:
Akaka
Stabenow
Cantwell
Boxer
Kennedy
Kerry
Feinstein
Dayton
Durbin
Schumer
Clinton
Cantwell
Mukolski
Reid
Sarbanes
Corzine
Harkin
Bayh
Biden
Lautenberg
Obama
Reed
Stabenow
Cantwell
Boxer
Kennedy
Kerry
Feinstein
Dayton
Durbin
Schumer
Clinton
Cantwell
Mukolski
Reid
Sarbanes
Corzine
Harkin
Bayh
Biden
Lautenberg
Obama
Reed
Final vote: 78-22
Catnip, CNN just said they have a rough count of 77 votes for Roberts.
P.S. Maria Cantwell is a no, but Patty Murray will vote yes. The Seattle Dems are pissed at Patty, but she’s very liberal and I think she is looking ahead to the next nomination. (I hope that that’s the case.)
because right at the moment I’m very disappointed in Senator Murray. I figured if anyone would be voting against Roberts, she would.
Shows how much I know.
I’m on record as saying that if Maria Cantwell wanted me to send her any re-election money, she’d better vote against Roberts. This also goes for Patty Murray, although she won’t be up for election for another five years, and hopefully by then she will do some things to make up for the Roberts vote (by leading the charge against any wingnut nominee Bush comes up with, or taking point in impeachment proceedings, or something).
she stood by her statements in this regard.
I am so not inclined to support her because she’s a DINO but at least she didn’t cave on her Pro-Choice position.
Lots of room here in CA – and we have right to privacy (including pro-choice) in our state constitution.
which would change the CA constitution is so critical.
Proposition 73, would not only erode that privacy right, and impact vulnerable teens, but it also, by being very broadly worded with pregnancy starting at conception, would affect the rights of all women to access emergency contraception in a safe, legal and staightforward manner. Will a twenty year old going to a pharmacy at 11PM have to “show ID”?
You bet. And you can bet that the folks who wrote this Proposition knew just what they were doing with this trojan horse.
Let’s hope Feinstein and Boxer help us on 73. Many of our Labor allies, like alliance for a better California aren’t….argh. NARAL..is.
Fwiw, for Californians, it’s NO on 73-78, in my book.
Frist is now speaking and the vote will be held after that.
update:
And then do they arrest Frist?
CNN is covering it live too … as are MSNBC and FOX.
And The Washington Post has a live video/audio feed!
(I’ll have to start remembering to check the WaPo.)
Your Cantwell voted no.
That’s cuz she has balls, cajones, huevos, and guts. Or some of those.
Yes, I hear she keeps them in a jar on her desk. 😉
Lieberman – aye (big surprise)
oops…I’m on the front page…I’ll get rid of that comment about my sleeping in. 🙂
Specter had the nerve the say in a press conference following the vote that it had a “bipartisan flavour”.
Bipartisan? According to which dictionary?
He said Roberts wathced the vote from the Roosevelt room with Sen Fred Thompson and others. When the ayes reached 50, everybody broke out in applause. Scotty’s looking happy today.
Okay – on to questioons about DeLay so we can wipe that smirk off his face.
Will be sworn in at 3pm ET today.
Oh, let’s make a party of it!
Got stuff ready to throw at the teevee?
I didn’t watch, I didn’t listen.This thing was a done deal from the beginning. This guy is Clarence Thomas in whiteface.
The first time I saw him and listened to him speak I thought to myself that that is one man who is in the closet!!! At the blue party I attended in D.C. I was pleasantly surprised when Rebbecca said the exact same thing. Her take was very religious upbringing tamping down hard some big time homosexuality. It would be a terrible way to live, but if he really is he has been doing it. Why are so many angry Republicans really just gay guys who hate themselves for who they are???? I will pray daily and nightly for his personal healing so that he can emerge from the darkness of the closet and perhaps even end up being a human being among the rest of us humans, and of course love and respect himself so that he can also love and respect others.
I feel physically ill.
I do too. This whole process and the D’s part in it are deeply, deeply disturbing.
This can not be blamed on individual Democrats this is the failure of the entire Democratic party… they confirmed a Chief Justice without even seeing all the documentation… how pathetic can you get.
Well that’s what I meant by D’s. If there intention is to save their strength to fight another day and they somehow believe that making this gesture now will be recieved by the R’s as good faith on their part, and Bush will somehow nominate a less extreme judge because of it, then they are playing right into the hands of the right. So the only conclusion I am left with is that they really don’t have a problem with turning over the Supreme Court to these radicals. It doesn’t take a political genious to have seen this coming, and they have just allowed a new precedent to be set regarding information being released by future nominees. The gate is wide open now.
Why did any of the Dems vote for Roberts? What political capital do they gain from going against the rights of their constituents by confirming a man they know next to nothing about? I really need someone to assume the role of Lieberman or Murray and explain this to me very slowly. I really don’t understand why knowing that you can’t defeat a nominee means that you should roll over and vote for him.
There’s the charitable answer (a/k/a the bullshit answer):
If they vote against him, they will be smeared/perceived as partisan obstructionists, and then when they oppose the next allegedly worse wingnut no one will take their objections seriously. Whereas if they grudgingly support Roberts, they’re perceived as willing to negotiate and compromise, so their objections to the next allegedly worse wingnut will be heeded by BushCo and Congress(R) and those fair-minded gents will reconsider and serve up someone more moderate to replace O’C.
::please pardon me while I choke on sardonic laughter and then re-assemble myself::
And then there’s the tinfoil answer (a/k/a the more likely to be true answer):
They are blow-dried, pancaked, corporate sellouts who do not represent our interests, and they are doing what they think is best for the masters they do serve.
What political capital do they gain from going against the rights of their constituents by confirming a man they know next to nothing about?
Because campaign platforms are getting increasingly squishy. The less we know, the better.
One view is that the judges should be confirmed NOT based on what they think on various political issues, but whether they’re competent and honest judges, and that asking questions about what they think is completely out of bounds.
It’s possible that some Democratic Senators agree with this viewpoint. It all has to do with what you think the “advise and consent” clause in the Constitution means.
The only good thing is that my faith in my senators (Mikulski and Sabanes of Maryland) has been upheld.
Let us hope that Roberts is not as bad as we fear — and prepare to dig our heels in on the next nominee.
Sigh.
if someone voted ‘no’ for me in Arizona. Oh wait…
GRRRRRRRRRR
Twelve years as a minority party (with the exception of that brief interlude in the Senate during Junior Caligula’s first two years) and the Dems still can’t figure out how to be an opposition party.
That is perfect!!!!
“We’ll have to see if keeping the powder dry was the right tactic,” What utter shit.
to call you a bitch. And I apologize. A lot. Not sure what got into me yesterday — but even if I did, it’d be an excuse not a reason, so I hope you’ll accept the apology — I’d like to start responding to your comments again — they’re too good.
but did any R’s vote against Roberts?