Of Racists, Cheats, and Liars - an ode to Robert C. Byrd

[Kennedy 0]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/21/filibuster/index.html
That's right, that says CNN up there.

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Re-inventing the filibuster
Thursday, April 21, 2005 Posted: 7:25 PM EDT (2325 GMT)

WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- While re-inventing himself at age 87 in his 47th year as a senator, Robert C. Byrd has denied his clear past use of parliamentary maneuver to force majority rule in the Senate.

That fits the broader phenomenon of Democrats reinventing the senatorial filibuster, historically notorious for protecting racial segregation, into a weapon of liberalism.

Byrd's use of a simple majority rule to make Senate rules fit the wishes of dominant Democrats during the 1970s and 1980s was revealed by legal scholars in January.

It took Byrd's lawyers until March 20 for him to claim he did not do what he did. In fact, there is no doubt Byrd led the Democrats in championing majority rights when they had a majority.

Liberal Democrats, who now extol the filibuster to protect minorities, were in the forefront advocating strict majority rule through most of my nearly 48 years as a reporter covering Congress.

As recently as 2000, architects of the filibuster strategy to block President Bush's judicial nominees -- with Democrat Bill Clinton still in the White House -- were demanding straight up-or-down votes on judges.

The showdown in the Senate may be only three or four weeks away.

The unprecedented Democratic blockage of 16 Bush appellate choices has led Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to attempt a maneuver that, in effect, confirms a judge by a simple majority vote of 51 rather than the 60 needed to break a filibuster -- unfortunately first self-described by Republicans as the "nuclear option."

The Democratic response that this approach assails constitutional rights was undermined by a close examination of Byrd's long record in the Senate.

In January, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy published an account by two Washington lawyers, Martin B. Gold and Dimple Gupta, of what they called the "constitutional option." For more than a century, the Senate frequently resorted to parliamentary tactics to impose majority rule -- most recently by Bob Byrd.

Byrd, who entered political life as a Ku Klux Klan member, in the '60s was a conservative Democrat, and was delighted when Richard Nixon listed him as a possible Supreme Court nominee.

Byrd's next role was as the hard driving majority leader rolling over liberal dissenters. He since has taken a rapid trip to the left, with the radical MoveOn.org raising big money for his 2006 re-election.

Gold and Gupta cited four instances where Byrd had amended Senate rules with majority votes. Byrd ignored this report for two months until Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch on March 10 went on the Senate floor to discuss the four cases. It took 10 more days for Byrd to respond to Gold, Gupta and Hatch by denying the past: "Their claims are false . . . they are dead wrong. Dead wrong."

But Byrd cannot erase what really happened -- as on October 3, 1977, when Majority Leader Byrd smashed a liberal filibuster against natural gas deregulation. The liberal Sen. James Abourezk of South Dakota complained that Byrd wanted "to change the entire rules of the Senate during the heat of the debate."

Usually, however, liberals were aligned against the filibuster, the bulwark preventing civil rights legislation until 1957. During Clinton's presidency, Senate Democratic Leader Thomas Daschle and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy repeatedly demanded up-or-down majority votes on judicial nominations. Once Bush was elected, they crafted a filibuster strategy to block judicial nominees.

Through my reporting career on Capitol Hill, filibuster advocates did not utter the dreaded f-word (with Southern segregationists referring to it as "extended debate"). "Filibuster" was talked about by foes, such as Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy on June 18, 1998: "I have stated over and over again on this floor that I would . . . object and fight against any filibuster on a judge."

Liberals now praise the filibuster by name. Leahy, the Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat, on April 6 declared: "Eliminating the filibuster by the nuclear option would violate and destroy the Constitution's design of the Senate as an effective check on the executive."

Frist reiterated Tuesday that his plans refer only to nominations: "I will not act in any way to import the rights of colleagues when it comes to legislation."

Robert Byrd observed no such boundaries when he was majority leader.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[aerohaga 0]

Oh my God, that man is an embarassment to my state!

For my part, I know nothing with any certainty,
But the sight of the stars makes me dream.
-Vincent Van Gogh

[rushmc 23]

Wait did you get this from ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, NPR or another reliable news/information source?

....cause I did see this on the biased FOX News Channel?

I'm confused.......

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[Kennedy 0]

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[lawrocket 3]

Jeez. In another ten years, the tide will turn again. Republicans hate filibusters now that it works against them. Democrats hated them when it worked against them.

Republicans are no better than Dems in this regard. They've both done 180's on their public stances with this in the past 6 or 7 years...

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Kennedy 0]

So what do you think? Should fillibusters be allowed on judicial nominees and the other "advice and consent" positions?

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[kallend 2,148]

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So what do you think? Should fillibusters be allowed on judicial nominees and the other "advice and consent" positions?

On the whole, I think a Supreme Court appointment for life should require something more than 51% approval, regardless of who is in power at the time.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[lawrocket 3]

Dude, filibuster's history is long and storied. HEck, the term "filibuster" means "to pirate," from my undertsanding.

There was no rule prohibiting filibusters untile the early 1900's. Just after WWII, the rule was changed to let 2/3 of the vote of the whole Senate to invoke cloture. After Thurmond filibusered the 1957 Civil Rights act for over 24 hours, the rule was changed again to make 60 be the standard for cloture.

So, we've got a history of filibusters as long as the republic. Changing Senate rules about filibuster is fairly recent. Abe Fortas's nomination to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was filibustered away back in 1968 by Republicans. Republicans also perfected the use of the filibuster back in the early 90's. I think there were over 30 of them in 1991 and 1992, I think.

Of course, until 2003, there had never been a successful filibuster of a lower court nominee. Since 2003, there have probably been more cloture votes on judicialy nominees than there have been total before that since 1787.

Then again, the Constitution guarantees that the Senate may determine its own "rules and proceedings." So the cloture rule can be changed by the Senate. So the Senate can vote to change cloture.

So, should filibuster be allowed? If the Senate allows it, then yes. If the Senate doesn't allow it, then no.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[jdhill 0]

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I think a Supreme Court appointment for life should require something more than 51% approval,

Perhaps it should, but that is not what the Consitution calls for... there's always the Amendment process...

As for the Senate majority exercising their consitutional powers to change the rules of the Senate, it is always something that should be approached with great care, but they are well within their authority to do it.

J

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke