Sen. Specter Should Use Nuclear Option and End Senate Filibuster Rule For Judicial Nominees
By Kevin Fobbs
November 22, 2004

With the U.S. Senate Republicans lining up on Thursday behind soon-to-be Judiciary Committee Chairman, Pro-Choice Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, conservatives should still push for the one option which will insure President's Bush's judicial nominees will receive an up or down vote on the Senate floor.

Specter should immediately set into motion the use of the Nuclear Option and end the Senate Filibuster Rule being applied to federal bench nominees of the president. This obstructionist tool has been used capriciously by Senate liberals. This should be the first order of business by the Senate, because to not do so would potentially leave any future appeals court or U.S. Supreme Court nominations by the President in a mis-constructed Constitutional Lock Box.

Why is this discussion even necessary, you might ask? The answer is simple. Even with the addition of four more votes in the US. Senate by Republicans, the Republicans are still 5 votes short of cutting off debate when the liberals invoke a filibuster rule against the President's nominees; in affect thwarting the will of the people. Remember the 59,000,000 plus who elected the President and gave him the political capital he intends to spend? They deserve to see that his nominees receive a fair and judicious hearing and vote on the Senate floor.

Well, this is one battle the president should not have to spend any capital on. Remember last year, the Liberals wanted, yes insisted that the president should compromise over their engineered political standoff.

They conveniently forgot that Article II of the Constitution provides "The president shall nominate, and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint...Judges of the Supreme Court and all other Officers of the United States..."

Don't you think 200 years of the Constitution should allow the president to nominate judicial candidates to the federal bench, without putting his nominees in some lock box? Instead of adhering to the Constitution, the best alternative liberals could come up with in the last year was to experiment further with the Constitution by creating a plan that would allow for a Senate "compromise clause." plan

This mockery of the Senate Rules and the Constitution would have allowed for rewriting of the federal judiciary nominating process by forming a Citizen Judicial Nominating Commission in each state and circuit that would then select one nominee for each judicial vacancy. This liberal concoction would "permit" the president and Senate leader of the opposite party to select equal numbers of members of this commission. The president would then be forced to nominate the individual selected by the commission and the Senate would be required to confirm that individual -- at least absent "evidence" that the candidate is "unfit for judicial service."

Well, fortunately this bogus alternative ran straight into a brick wall labeled, Article II of the Constitution.

With the high probability that the president will have the opportunity to nominate one Chief Justice and 3 or 4 Supreme Court Justices, there really is no time to needlessly drag out the constitutionally mandated "Advise and Consent" process.

The other important point to keep in mind in the use of the Nuclear Option is that it only necessitates a change in the Senate rules, not the Constitution as some liberal pundits have mistakenly pointed out. The process is simply not working and the Nuclear Option in eliminating the filibuster rule, which has being applied to judicial nominees, would end. Instead the nominees would be voted on by the senators and confirmation would only require 51 votes, which had been the historic practice of the Senate until recently.

And whom have the liberals in the Senate turned their political power against? Those nominees of the President who don't pass their litmus test. You see, the liberal senate judicial obstructionists have a standard: if you are a Christian, conservative woman, conservative Hispanic or conservative African-American, or if you are pro-life, you can't be a federal judge in this country. That really is their bottom line.

I'm a little partisan to the president's nominees from Michigan. In our state we have several very able, highly qualified nominees to the U.S. 6th Circuit of Appeals. The Michigan nominees have been left to simply cool their heels, just simply waiting...and waiting...and waiting. Michigan Appeals Court Judge Richard Griffin; U.S. District Court Judge, Western District of Michigan, David McKeague; Judge Susan Bieke Neilson, Circuit Court, Wayne County, Michigan; and Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Henry Saad, are all very respected jurists who would provide the 30.5 million Americans who live in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee their day in court. Instead, due to partisan political high jinks, justice is stalled and denied the residents of these four states.

Justice and the president's election mandate cannot be deferred any longer. Senator Specter and Senate Majority Leader Frist...should use the Nuclear Option and bring an end to the use of the filibuster rule being applied to judicial nominees. After all the president's electoral mandate entitles his nominees and America to an up or down vote for his nominees. It really is the right thing to do.

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Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is also Second Vice Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party and daily host of The Kevin Fobbs Show on News Talk WDTK - 1400 AM in Detroit as well as co-founder of the Jackson, MI-based American Conservative Values Television Network. Listen to The Kevin Fobbs Show at www.wdtkam.com.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.