Nelson Named New Democrat of the Week
Jun 01, 10:32 AM CST
When a bipartisan group of 14 Senators gathered last week in the
Capitol, they struck a blow against polarization and a short-sighted effort to radically change the U.S. Senate. Their compromise on judicial nominations, temporary though its effects may be, represented a triumph of common sense. Seven members from each party came to a genuine and sound agreement and they did it in the midst of a nearly poisonous atmosphere that had been threatening to grow still worse. In doing so, they prevented the Senate’s Republican leadership from changing the chamber’s rules requiring up-or-down majority-wins votes on every nominee to the federal judiciary and averted a looming nuclear option.
Chief among the deal’s architects was Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson. In his success, he revealed both a respect for bipartisanship and a faith in sane politics over partisan orthodoxy. For weeks leading up to the impending confrontation, he worked quietly to cobble together and bolster up a group of leaders who crossed party lines and advocated a reasoned stand down.
On the eve of Republican Leader Bill Frist’s (TN) decision to push
forward with the nuclear option, Nelson, Republican Senator John McCain (AZ), and a dozen others announced their solution with relief and pride: Our compromise was crafted within the rules of the Senate, without requiring a rules change or a change in minority rights in the Senate, Nelson said.
The negotiated and agreed upon compromise is aimed at preventing a momentous vote on whether to strip the Minority of their capacity to use the filibuster to block Bush’s candidates for federal courts.
The seven Republicans made a commitment to vote against a nuclear maneuver for the rest of this Congress. The seven Democrats agreed to reserve filibusters against judicial nominees to extraordinary cases, which aptly captures the extraordinary nature of filibusters themselves. The two sides compromised on the Court of Appeals judges that would be subject to further filibusters, and although a couple of the cleared nominees have troubling records, letting them go is far preferable to permanently losing the filibuster tool against potential extremist Supreme
Court candidates.
With eight years during the ‘90s as Nebraska’s governor under his belt, Nelson has earned a reputation for hammering out real solutions that deliver tangible results. Last week in Washington, Nelson and his colleagues put that reputation to the test in an environment of bitter polarization.
In addition to having people here whose word is good, you also have mutual trust, Nelson said. Now the Senate can move forward and get to important business.
It is unclear how long the truce will last—and with John Bolton’s
nomination to be named ambassador to the United Nations still hanging over the Senate, our glimpse of civility may have been very short-lived.
Ultimately though, what America saw last week in the work of Nelson and his colleagues, was not a long-term solution to any of the challenges Senate Democrats continue to face today. Rather, it is a promising beginning and one that manages also to honor and respect the party’s core principles. Indeed, both the group that struck this deal and Democrats like Minority Leader Harry Reid, who welcomed the compromise, seem to agree that empowering the extremes by indulging in unending ideologically motivated procedural games of chicken, ultimately hurts no one more than it does the American people.
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Judge Brown is hostile to minorities, women and Workers. Categories that I indentify with being a female African American worker.
The Republicans would have you believe that this nomination is about race. (a concept that I find hard to believe when talking about black America when republicans are involved) but, make no mistake this nomination is not about race!
This nomination is about keeping a radical ideolouge off of the second most influential court next to the Supreme Court in the nation.
Judge Brown has shown a strong disdain for government, the constitution, women and minorites and workers. Judge Brown represents the extreme radical right of the right. Judge Brown is so far out of the mainstream she is in her own galaxy.
I sometimes wonder if Judge Brown did not receive her J.D. from a cracker jacks box. She seems to have no concept of intent of the law or the rule of presecendence. She is an activist judge of the worst kind. She is not only bad for Black America she is bad for the constitution, and the fight for basic civil and human rights.
I urge Sen. Nelson to vote for the good of the country on the nomination of Judge Brown.
Black America will be watching this Judge and this nomination. Judge Brown had her up or down Four years ago and the answer was what it should be now, a resounding NO!.
While some in America may not understand Black America understands all too well that when Black America does well America does well. I urge the United States Senate to vote for the good of the country when consdiering the Vote on Judge Brown.
Remember Black America is watching.
— Robin Q. Jun 05, 10:00 PM CST #
Brown On Seniors: Cannibalizing Their Grandchildren. Brown: “Today’s senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren because they have a right to get as much ‘free’ stuff as the political system will permit them to extract.” [“Fifty Ways to Lose Your Freedom,” Speech to Institute of Justice, 8/12/00]
Brown On Affirmative Action: Rejecting History, Doing A Disservice. Brown’s dissenting opinion in a controversial case concerning affirmative action was criticized by the California Supreme Court’s chief justice, who said her opinion incorrectly claimed that past Supreme Court decisions approving affirmative action were “wrongly decided” and that her analysis “represents a serious distortion of history and does a grave disservice to the sincerely held views of a significant segment of our populace.” [Hi-Voltage Wire Works, Inc. v. City of San Jose; 12 P.3d 1068]
Brown On Age Discrimination: No Special Consideration. Brown: “Discrimination based on age does not mark its victim with a stigma of inferiority and second class citizenship…it is the unavoidable consequence of that universal leveler: time.” [pfaw.org; Dissenting opinion in Stevenson v. Superior Court, 941 P.2d 1157,1177, 1187 (Cal. 1997)]
Brown Plays Politics With New Deal Programs. Brown: “The New Deal…inoculated the federal Constitution with a kind of underground collectivist mentality. The Constitution itself was transmuted into a significantly different document…1937…marks the triumph of our own socialist revolution.” [pfaw.org]
Environmental Advocates Strenuously Object To Brown. She has also denounced the Supreme Courts landmark ruling U.S. v. Carolene Products; a view which, if adopted, according to a wide array of environmental advocates, “would signal the death-knell for a vast range of health labor, and environmental standards it enacted during the last century.” [Earthjustice.org]
Brown Recently Decided Against Protecting Minority Rights. “The state’s highest ranking black judge sent a loud and clear message this week to other black women and minorities: Don’t look to Janice Rogers Brown for special protection against discrimination. In two opinions Monday, the California Supreme Court justice told Oakland residents they are better off without a local ordinance that shields them from predatory banking practices and better off without case law that guards them against being kicked off criminal juries by prosecutors biased against black women.” [San Francisco Daily Journal, 2/5/05]
Brown Argues Vehemently Against a Role For Government. Brown: “Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline in the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible.” [Speech to Federalist Society, 4/20/00]
— Robin Q. Jun 06, 03:23 PM CST #