In the end, she ascends
The GOP's minimal options for blocking Sotomayor
In the end, she ascends
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
I'm sticking with the Sonia Sotomayor story for the rest of the week, in case anyone wants to tune out now. As with all Supreme Court nominations, the initial flow of news is simply too copious to ignore. But here's the bottom line on this nominee:
Barring some stunningly adverse and unforeseen revelation (such as, she employed an illegal immigrant and didn't tell the White House; or, she didn't pay her taxes and didn't tell the White House), it's a virtual certainty that she will be confirmed. The Republican right will slash away, Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh will stay in hyperbolic overdrive, conservative legal groups will raise a lot of money, GOP senators will furrow their brows and ask probing questions in committee, but in the end, she ascends.
This process will take months, but the numbers are inescapable. She needs only 51 votes on the Senate floor, and there are 59 sitting Democratic senators. She can be blocked from the floor via parliamentary maneuver if the Republicans stage a filibuster, but sustaining it would require 41 senators. Good luck with that. There are only 40 Republican senators. Would the two moderate Republican women from the blue state of Maine vote to sustain a filibuster? Would Republican Mel Martinez, an Hispanic who has already warned the Republicans about the political hazards of blocking Sotomayor, vote to sustain a filibuster?
And would other Republican senators dare try to mount a filibuster, and risk being exposed as hypocrites - given the fact that, back in 2005, so many of them publicly assailed the tactic of blocking judicial nominees via filibuster?
Here's Nevada Sen. John Ensign, at the time: "Filibustering of judicial nominations is an unprecedented intrusion into the longstanding practice of the Senate's approval of judges...the filibuster has never been used in partisan fashion to block and up-or-down vote on someone who has the support of the majority of the Senate."
And New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg: "Judicial nominations have the right to an up or down vote in the Senate." Filibustering "is inconsistent with over 200 years of tradition in the Senate and distorts our system of checks and balances."
And Louisiana Sen. David Vitter: A judicial nominee can't "even get an up or down vote on the floor? That's not fair. That's not fair in the minds of ordinary Americans."
And Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch: "What's wrong with taking a (floor) vote up or down? The Senate can't confirm nominees if senators can't vote for them."
And Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby: "I do not think that any of us want to operate in an environment where federal judicial nominees must receive 60 votes in order to be confirmed.
And Texas Sen. John Cornyn: Citing "200 years of consistent Senate and constitutional tradition," he supported "an up or down vote for all presidents' nominees, whether they be Republican or Democrat."
And Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell (the current minority leader): "Let's get back to the way the Senate operated for over 200 years, up or down votes on the president's nominee, no matter who the president is, no matter who's in control of the Senate. That's the way we need to operate."
More than a dozen others said much the same thing.
Actually, you have to feel a little sorry for those guys. They rushed to assail the evils of the filibuster in 2005 only because the outgunned Democratic senators were using the tactic to block 10 Bush judicial nominees. (And, absolutely, the hypocrisy goes both ways. Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, while defending his party's efforts to block those Bush picks for the lower courts, insisted in 2005 that the filibuster tactic "has been essential to America's checks and balances"...whereas, back in 1995, he had assailed the filibuster as a "dinasour" and "a relic of the ancient past.")
Nevertheless, these Republicans are all on record defending the sanctity of Senate floor votes; they'd cement their '09 image as the practictioners of No if they tried to block Sotomayor with the filibuster tactic they so recently condemned. They're free, of course, to fume about her on cable TV and in the blogosphere during the summer season, but when it comes time to count the votes, their success options will be minimal.
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I just wrote this freelance piece about the demise of the newspaper foreign correspondent, a trend I briefly mentioned here a few months back. Granted, this journalistic topic seems unconnected to national politics. However, as the best TV series in history (that would be The Wire) makes abundantly clear, everything is connected.
Hey Djoko- As a liberal " baseball" coach do you ask the umpire for a triple even though your team hit a single because the other team got one? Just curious.... just wondering if you play baseball with the same political philosophy. And yes it is a joke so don't get all upset.
Comment removed.- tom--for heavens sake before you get into a legal briarpatch, at least google pre-emption, 14th amendment, etc. This issue of federal vs state law is extraordinarily complicated.— liberal
- tom--sorry to get uppity, but if you read the DC decision by Scalea, it says nothing about state law (it's about DC law, which is federal law) , so the appeals courts have to follow existing supreme court cases on state gun law. There's no controversy here. The supremes will probably have to make some new law when the next gun case comes up.— liberal
- Tom - I will NOT do your research for you. There are many SCOTUS blogs out there who wrote on reversals. Why don't you spend some time educating yourself rather than sticking to frankly ASININE GOP talking points which frankly prove NOTHING either good or bad about the judge. Just how many cases do you think Sotomayor ruled on before one of hers went to the high court ???? A meaningless statistic. My one worry about Sotomayor is her diabetes. I want this tiger on the high court for DECADES !!!— ModerateMarge
- There are only two valid views on north korea: (1) We don't have a dog in that fight, so let the Chinese, South Koreans, Russians and Japanese handle it; or (2) we have to police all new nuclear powers that might provide nukes to terrorists that could be used in the US. I'll be darned if i can figure out which one is right. Good luck to Obama.— liberal
- DadofThree 04:44 PM: There is NO POSSIBLE WAY that you were around for the Thomas hearings if that is your "comprehension" of them. The Dems most certainly were focused on his near-nonexistent judicial experience. The sexual harassment charges were discovered at the end of the confirmation hearings when an FBI interview was leaked. The charges were NOT unfounded and many of them (including the disgusting Coke can/pubic hair incident) were NEVER disproved. Although, his highly credible accuser, Anita Hill, was vilified and humiliated for no reason other than the GOP needed an ultra-conservative affirmative action hire to the court in hopes of gaining black voter support for GHWB's re-election after Souter's confirmation angered the GOP base. So please spare us your Red State blog b.s. Or are you actually that astoundingly clueless?— Chris_CRHS1981
- Swede--a liberal baseball coach wants to get the best players on his level playing field, regardless of their pedigree, income level, what country their parents came from, etc. Conservatives value these things highly and would rather lose than have a diverse team in place.— liberal
- swede--do you think it was liberals who spit on Jackie Robinson when he took the field?— liberal
- CD75 - My apologies for my naivete. I'm working on that. You have to think, though, that North Korea understands it would never survive a nuclear conflict. Sure, they might get the first shot off, but once they do that, nearly the entire world will turn against them. Don't they have more to gain by just *threatening* the use of nuclear force, and hoping somebody caves to some of their demands? Tom - I realize this refutes what I just said to CD, but why should China feel compelled to cut off North Korea's food supply? They're well within the North's current firing range, and that would be a pretty substantial bluff to call. I'm obviously no diplomacy expert, but I'm not sure much is to be gained with threats against the North Korean citizens (who will be the ones hurt by a food shortage) when the government is already holding out on them in the first place.— Eric_in_CA
- Comment removed.
- Marge, USA, Tony and Dorko: What could Obama done with North Korea? For starters Obama could tell China and Russia that if they want to be world leaders they should act like a leader and take a real stance against North Korea and if China and Russia do not, tell them that it will greatly affect the USA's relationship with them. Of course, Obama does not have the guts to do that.— CD75
- Liberal- No those were Democrats not Republicans. We are the party of Lincoln the party that got the 1964 Civil Rights act passed while Al Gore's father was voting against it. The party who ended the Klan while Democrat Robert Bryd from West Virginia was aspiring to be the grand wizard. So spare me your sanctimony and your racism.
- Janaan- please come with some proof. A laundry list of names prove nothing. Republicans believe that everyone is created equal. Democrats say that, but they have a funny way of showing it when a minority dares to be conservative.
- swedesboromike: no, no Bush Supreme Court nominees were ever filibustered.— still_independent
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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