Has to get approved by Senate leadership, but the deal would allow for cloture on three nominees: Priscilla R. Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/23/AR2005052301169.html
You can always count on Senate Republicans to panic at the thought of victory. I am betting they got rolled.
I guess I shouldn’t be such a cynic since the deal sounds reasonable. It will probably take time to play out before we understand the deal.
I’d assume there are some subtle nuances to all this, but from what the synopsis seems to state is that Republicans almost win. They get two of their more important judges through (don’t know much about the others remaining, I think there are 2 left), and the filibuster has been avoided. Each party will spin to their base that they were the cooler heads and made the deal happen, each base will continue to view the other side with disdain.
We will see, but it can’t be that simple. Democrats play to win. They wouldn’t have agreed unless the Republicans agreed to throw some people to the lions.
I think the deal works out as the three judges mentioned (Judges Owen, Rogers and Pryor) will get up or down votes. Three of the four nominees from Michigan (Judges Neilson, Griffith and McKeague) will get up or down votes. Democrats will continue the filibusters on the fourth nominee from Michigan (Judge Saad, who is a fine man and one of the best judges that I have appeared before) and a nominee to another circuit. Republicans agree not to change the filibuster rules. I think it’s really unclear as to what the Democrats will do with future nominees. I will judge the deal in another year or so.
I personally don’t think that the Democrats could get away with a sustained filibuster on a nominee to the Supreme Court of the same kind that held up Judges Own, Rogers and Pryor. Americans expect that there will be a full Supreme Court and that filibusters actually require the Senators to keep talking just like Jimmy Stewart did. So, if there are nomination(s) to the Supreme Court, there will end up being an up or down vote after reasonable debate.
This is all about the Supreme Court. No one gives a damn about a few Appeals Court judges.
By my score card, Democrats win on the three that have witdrawn including Estrada, and we don’t know how many of the remaining four. They also get to continue to play games with SC nominees.
The text of the “deal” is meaningless. In the tradition of Senators, they have avoided making a decision until another day. Frankly, I would have been stunned at any other result.
So the majority party wins on three, at least four others are thrown overboard, and we will see about the other three. What a great majority party we have. Maybe we should just go back into the minority and make Reid Majority Leader.
I think that we are better off today than we were yesterday and am actually pleased that Senator McCain did not manage to pull off a deal that was even worse for us than he did.
This got lost by a faulty internet connection (seriously, I’m in a huuuuuge corporate office, how hard is it to keep a good connection??). The comments may be moot given the recent posts.
Well, at least 2 judges are now “hanging in the balance”. Chris Matthews on Fox Sunday was pressing McCain to admit that the leftover judges in the deal would never see the light of day, but McCain wouldn’t relent that the goal of the agreement was to get the three judges (an unknown number before last night) to the Senate for possible confirmation (all but guaranteed), and then let the others fall where they may. We may have a Senate judicial filibuster in a week on the other judges, that’s very much a possibility.
I think Democrats will claim this as a victory because their goal was to get the Republicans to make a deal, and they did. Their has been a loud (although I think minority) voice saying “Dems lost, they are the minority, they must roll over and just take it” and the Dems proved this to be false now. They got a little bit more blanket in what is the Congressional equivalent to fighting with your spouse for the covers in bed.
Unless I’m really off, there aren’t 10 judges involved here.
At least 2 of the 10 judges mentioned have withdrawn their names. So I think we’re at 8. 3 get through, 1 it sounds like is stuck, and the others will either get votes if Republicans really view this as an important issue. If the Republicans decide it’s not important any more (which is where my money is, the topic has lost it cache) then those leftover in essence get “thrown overboard” by their own party due to a short attention span. However, since this debate has been going on for many many months, maybe the Republicans will hold strong and demand votes on the remaining judges.
I don’t see why they wouldn’t do this. The deal doesn’t say much about anything beyond what will be done today/tomorrow, after that, it’s all back to being as clear as mud. It’ll be an interesting political decision to see what the Republicans do. If they think the Democrats have “won” too much in this round then they won’t let the issue drop. If they want to attack other areas (not sure what the next topic du jour will be, my money is on immigration) then they will drop it and pick up the next round of placards.
Oh yeah, “judicial activism” and abortion are other good topics. The SC is set to hear the abortion case from ______ (somewhere in New England).
Republicans do know how to cave, and you certainly do make a good point. They did cave, but not as badly as I actually expected.
Having said that, I seriously doubt any of the other seven judges will ever get approved. I can’t see the Republicans driving up to this cliff again. It took all their courage to drive up the first time, knowing they would pull away. Next time, they would probably have to pull the trigger.
Can’t have that. It would require a decision.
And they wonder why Senators never get elected President.
Maybe Hillary should win next time. She at least knows how to make decisions.
i don’t think it’s a done deal that brown and owen get confirmed. some had speculated that the dem filibuster on those two was helping some of the senate repubs as they could support pres/frist on cloture, but never actually have to vote on those owen/brown. so now there are 7 repubs that have already bucked the party line. maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility. if those two go through without problems, it doesn’t mae the deal as attractive for seante dems.
Three have withdrawn. Three get through. We will see about the other four. I just don’t see Republican Senators with enough backbone for another fight. As a group, they are a bunch of losers.
What the hell happened to Lindsey Grahm? I used to love that guy. Now he is wobbly on judges and on SS. I hope I am missing something.