No Extreme Supremes
The nominee for the nation’s next Supreme Court justice has moved to an important next phase. The first phase, which involved putting pressure on the president to moderate his views on his selection of a replacement for Sandra Day O’Connor, and establishing a public expectation of the kind of nominee who would protect the rights and freedoms Americans support, ended with the nomination of John Roberts. The next phase will involve the public’s reaction to this nominee, and the public expectation of how the Senate will carry out its “advise and consent” responsibilities. The good news is that the public is already demanding that Judge Roberts’ record be reviewed thoroughly and carefully. A recent CNN/Gallup/USA Today survey suggests that most Americans are reserving judgment on Judge Roberts until they find out more about his views on important issues.
Qualifications are obviously important, but so are a candidate’s record and judicial philosophy. There’s no automatic right to a Supreme Court confirmation. The burden rests with the nominee, even one who was previously confirmed for a lower federal court.
In the end, the Roberts nomination will stand or fall on his willingness to answer the Senate’s questions, as well as the administration’s willingness to provide all requested documents from his prior government career.
Here at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, we are working with our nearly 200 coalition members to make sure the Senate takes its advice and consent role seriously. In the coming weeks, we’ll be providing research on John Roberts (you can find it all at www.saveourcourts.org) and reaching out to grassroots activists around the country. We need to show President Bush and the U.S. Senate that the people who don’t want an extremist Supreme Court justice aren't just some small band of Washington, DC-based activists. To that end, we’ve launched a website at www.NoExtremeSupremes.org that gives anyone the ability to upload a photographic message to the president and their senators. The wording may vary, but the point is the same: No Extreme Supremes.
Thank you for your energy, enthusiasm, and activism.
"In the end, the Roberts nomination will stand or fall on his willingness to answer the Senate’s questions, as well as the administration’s willingness to provide all requested documents from his prior government career."
Wishful thinking, that.
July 22, 2005 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
There’s no automatic right to a Supreme Court confirmation.
That's right. I want his short record reviewed thoroughly, and I want to take his measure as he answers questions in his confirmation hearings. Wade, I am glad your group is working "to make sure the Senate, the Democrats especially, takes its advice and consent role seriously".
This may be a bit off topic, but I was taking a peek - just a peek, since that's about all I can stand - at Fox News, and I saw a commercial about the new nominee, which said - and this is not a quote - that he deserved a fair hearing in the Senate. The commercial was paid for by Progress for America. Isn't it unusual and undignified to have commercials about a nominee to the Supreme Court?
July 22, 2005 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let's get real about some of these issues. Rove is not going to bring down the W Bush presidency, even electorally, unless he somehow fingers the president. Not bloody likely, as the Aussies say.
Roberts is not Bork. The president craftily went as far to the right as possible, but avoided certain triggers for opposition. Unless some Anita Hill type '11th hour surprise' comes out from nowhere, this is going to be a lot of jabber, and a slam dunk with 55 Repugs in the Senate. You can't keep throwing elections and expect the kinds of resistance to someone like Roberts people are talking about. Remember that when Bork was heard, the Democrats had just gained control of the Senate, after six years of being out, and they had a certain pent up energy as well as a majority. Then Kennedy went through like crap through a goose.
Progressives must focus on battles where real victories can be won. Remember that even losing a battle, done the right way, can be a political plus. Here's three winners:
*raising the minimum wage, the amounts suggested by Democrats and sticking to our guns. This is a popular issue, especially with those affected, and should be put front and center.
*pushing legislation in the areas that would do MORE against terrorism, and highly publicizing these bills. When voted down, come back and try again the following year. Some will win. Even defeats would prove fruitful, as eventually they will turn into policy wins also
*The issue with Roberts is that he is anti-Roe and other issues. If it comes to a party line vote, Democrats lose, and not by a little. But Democrats could lay the groundwork for when and if Roe is overturned -- and give 'em hell. This issue must be approached frankly, as it is NOT a question of being 'out of the mainstream' as there are plenty of anti-Roe justices now.
The point is to point out the issues to the public, instead of being too arcane. Or speaking in code terms that avoid the blunt confrontation with the issues (a Republican privilege).
*The Mediscam Act -- going into effect in 2006. Don't wait for people to see what is going to happen. Tell them now over and over, as Kennedy has explained. Ads nationally should warn the public, and then those who ignore it will remember that the Democrats were right.
*Never let the Republicans live down their attempt on Social Security. It should be drilled like Willie Horton. And now that the Repugs have apologized for the Southern Strategy, the strategy with black and latino voters of blocking voting (in Ohio AND New Mexico, etc) should be hammered away along with all the other forms of 'savvy strategic' "New Racism" approaches they have adopted.
So you hammer away at Social Security, Mediscam, and the "New Racism" and Republican hypocrisy, and the minimum wage, among other issues that I have raised, as well as some like Iraq and the deficit for which solutions are more difficult (at least for the Democrats to agree on and pursue).
 
; &nbs
p; &nb
sp; That's how a party determined to win functions.
July 23, 2005 7:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Roberts hearings being 4-6 weeks away, what is important right now for concerned liberals and leftists is to urge Congress not to renew the Patriot Act.
But at the hearings, I hope Democrats raise hell about the near-dictatorial powers the President has been handed (as Commander in Chief of the endless & "not really a war" War on Terror) by the Patriot Act and similar laws, and through Bush's assertion of executive powers without the aid of laws, _and_ the fact that the judicial branch has not thrown most of this cr-p out as unconstitutional or illegal.
Roberts is part of the problem. For example, he has signed on to the Hamdan v Rumsfeld decision, which makes US disobedience to the Geneva Conventions meaningless, with no negative consequences. Hamdan was a case where precedents were more than ambiguous enough to allow his court to do what needed to be done: use judicial power to enforce Geneva Convention POW rights at America's Guantanamo concentration camp. (Of course, the very existence of the concentration camp is an indication of a huge failure of our Supreme Court).
But unfortunately Roberts is most consistent in one thing: the Executive branch is the boss and both the Judiciary and Congress gotta get out of the way. This is a terrible time in American history -- with Gitmo, the Patriot Act, Jose Padilla, Abu Ghraib and so on all crying out for judicial intervention -- for another executive branch uber alles type to join the Supremes. Raise hell, Demos.
July 23, 2005 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink