More on filibusters

"The Democrats in the Senate were elected by the people (and represent more than half of American voters)."

So says a post on the previous blog entry. True, but Senate votes are not based on population served. That's the House of Representatives. Senate votes are based on majority rule, plain & simple. It may be an insult to some Democrats to call them "unreasonable," but it is indeed unreasonable for a minority in the Senate to impose its will on the majority.

This argument about how the Democrats have blocked only 10 out of Bush's 200+ nominees is a joke. You're not comparing apples to apples. According to Gerry Daly, Bill Clinton saw 61 percent of his circuit court nominees approved by the Senate (86 percent in his first four years); George W. Bush has seen just 53 percent of his circuit court nominees approved. If these folks are indeed "bad judges," I again assert that the Democrats should make that case on the floor and persuade a majority of Senators to vote no. Why are you afraid of a vote?

Regarding how the Democrats will approve some judges, and will even let the Republicans pick which nominees get approval. That sounds so nice, so bipartisan...and is such baloney. If the Democrats don't care which nominees get approval, they're explicity admitting that their claim of extremism is false — they just want to filibuster someone to be a pain in the GOP neck.

Finally, this urban legend about how Attorney General Alberto Gonzales accused Priscilla Owen of "judicial activism" when they were members of the Texas Supreme Court is an outright lie. Here is Gonzales at his AG confirmation hearing:

Let me just say at the outset regarding Judge Owen: I served with Judge Owen on the Texas Supreme Court, and I think she did a splendid job, a superb job as a judge. I think she would make a superb judge on the 5th Circuit, and that's why her name was recommended to the president. There were a series of very contentious cases -- opinions written in connection with six cases, I think, involving four minor daughters in the year 2000 while I was on the court. It is true that the law -- the legislature made it a policy judgment that they wanted more -- they wanted parents more involved with the abortion decisions of their minor daughters. But the legislature did not make the parental rights absolute; they provided three exceptions. And most of the decisions of the court involved -- are about interpreting those exceptions, allowing a judicial bypass.

My comment about an act of judicial activism was not focused at Judge Owen or Judge Hecht; it was actually focused at me. What I was saying in that opinion was that, given my interpretation of what the legislature intended, by the way the words that they used in terms of having a minor not totally informed or well informed but sufficiently well informed and the structure of the act, it was in my judgment that the legislature did intend the judicial bypasses to be real. And given my conclusion about what the legislature intended, it would have been an act of judicial activism not to have granted the bypass in that particular case. If someone like Judge Owen in that case reached a different conclusion about what the legislature intended, it would have been perfectly reasonable for her to reach a different outcome. But as to the words that have been used as a sword against Judge Owen, let me just say that those words were related to me in terms of my interpretation of what the legislature intended, again, through the words of the statute and the way that the judicial bypass procedure would actually operate in practice.

In case you need another explanation, read this.

The Democrats love to see their will imposed on the country through court rulings against the constitutionality of marriage amendments or abortion restrictions, even when the "right to privacy" or the "separation of church & state" is nowhere to be found in the Constitution; that's what this is really about — control of the judiciary, which has been the far left's best friend over the last 30 years. I would think the Democrats, with their love of constitutional findings, would understand that the filibuster is not allowed under our founding documents. Or is only unconstitutional when you don't agree with it?