Judiciary committee members pontificate… September 22, 2005
Posted by relantel in Rehnquist Vacancy, Supreme Court.add a comment
In one of the longest votes of recent memory, the Senate Judiciary Committee today is allowing its members 10 minutes each to announce their vote and the reasons behind it, before actually voting later this afternoon.
Most of the GOP members have not used the full 10 minutes, with Orrin Hatch coming in at just over 2 minutes used. All of the Dems have used the full time, and have split 3 for, 5 against:
All GOP For (10 members)
Dems For (3 of 
Leahy (VT)
Kohl (WI)
Feingold (WI)
Dems Against (5 of
Kennedy (MA)
Biden (DE)
Feinstein (CA)
Schumer (NY)
Durbin (IL)
For a final tally of 13-5, or not that much different than when Roberts was up for the D.C. Circuit two years ago, when he got 3 no votes in committee before being approved unanimously by voice vote on the floor of the Senate. (Feinstein & Biden voted for Roberts in committee in 2003)
The Dems voting For the nomination have left a caveat to allow them to vote against a future nomination solely on the basis of a White House refusing to share privileged documents, as they did in this case with the Solicitor General’s office memos.
We know Wisconsin almost went Red last November, and is trending that direction. I think that helped give Kohl and Feingold an excuse to support Roberts. One of the two is up next year for re-election.
12;55pm: the vote is done, 13-5, and the nomination has been forwarded favorably to the Senate Floor.
Is there ice forming in Hades? September 18, 2005
Posted by relantel in Rehnquist Vacancy, Supreme Court.add a comment
WaPo (gasp) supports Roberts’ confirmation (HT: Redstate):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte…5091701133.html
My take is that the Post realizes the fight is lost on Roberts, and that they need to save their capital for the fight on the O’Connor replacement. This brings me to some speculation from Erick at Redstate:
http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/9/17/112359/844
I see it as a wee bit distressing that they are even worrying about polls. If the Dems try to filibuster, the democrat half of the “gang of 14″ will either break the filibuster by keeping their word, or force the GOP half to keep their word by voting for the constitutional option, killing judicial nomination filibusters once an for all. Either way, whomever Bush nominates will get confirmed.
It is often said the difference between 40% in the polls and 60% is action vs inaction. Clinton was in the 60’s but didn’t do very much at all, and as such is still searching for a legacy. For all the complaints, no one can say that Bush has done nothing. The one thing never asked in those types of polls is why those polled approve or disapprove. A breakdown between disapprove because of doing too much, or disapprove for doing too little would be nice.
Kennedy disarmed, Biden flustered September 13, 2005
Posted by relantel in Rehnquist Vacancy, Supreme Court.add a comment
I touched on this briefly on the forums side, but felt compelled to expand upon it a little.
Sen. Kennedy (D-MA) went out fourth after Chairman Specter (R-PA), ranking member Leahy (D-VT), and Senator Hatch (R-UT). He led his remarks off with a rant on the afteraffects of Hurricane Katrina, proceded to bring up race, and spent most of his time asking longwinded questions, and interrupting Roberts’s responses. His interruptions got so bad that the Chair had to intervene several times so that questions could be answered by Roberts.
Kennedy closed with a false premise, misreprenting the Reagan administration position on Title IX, extrapolating his misrepresentation to Roberts.
To which Roberts promptly dissected the false premise, which dealt with the Grove City Title IX case, and how far federal funds required colleges to comply with title IX. Kennedy attempted to make it into Roberts and Reagan into being in favor of discrimination, while Roberts relayed that the IX regulations only applied to the portion receiving federal funds, i.e. the admissions office. It should be noted that the Court sided with the Reagan Adminsitration in Grove City.
Judge Roberts, if your position prevailed, it would have been legal in many cases to discriminate in athletics for girls, women. It would have been legal to discriminate in the hiring of teachers. It would have been legal not to provide services or accommodations to the disabled.
Do you still believe today that it is too onerous for the government to require universities that accept tuition payments from students who rely on federal grants and loans not to discriminate in any of their programs or activities?
ROBERTS: No, Senator, and I did not back then. You have not accurately represented my position.
KENNEDY: These are your words.
SPECTER: Let him finish his answer. That was a quite long question.
ROBERTS: Senator, you have selected…
SPECTER: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Senator Kennedy just propounded a very, very long question.
Now, let him answer the question. ROBERTS: Senator, you did not accurately represent my position. The Grove City College case presented two separate questions, and it was a matter being litigated, of course, in the courts. The universities were arguing that they were not covered at all by the civil rights laws in question simply because their students had federal financial assistance and attended their universities. That was their first argument. The second argument was, even if they were covered, all that was covered was the admissions office and not other programs that themselves did not receive separate financial assistance. Our position, the position of the administration — and, again, that was the position I was advancing. I was not formulating policy. I was articulating and defending the administration’s position. ROBERTS: And the administration’s position was, yes, you are covered if the students receive federal financial assistance and that the coverage extended to the admissions office. That was the position that the Supreme Court agreed with. We were interpreting legislation.
The question is: What is the correct interpretation of the legislation? The position that the administration advanced was the one I just described: The universities were covered due to federal financial assistance to their students. It extended to the admissions office.
The Supreme Court in the Grove City case agreed with that position. So the position the administration had articulated, the Supreme Court concluded, was a correct interpretation of what this body, the Congress, had enacted. Congress then changed the position about coverage. And that position was, I believe, signed into law by the president and that became the new law.
The memo you read about Secretary Bell’s proposal, if I remember it, was, well, he said: If we’re going to cover all of the universities, then we shouldn’t hinge coverage simply on federal financial assistance.
And the position I took in the memorandum was that, no, we should not revisit that question. We should not revisit the question that federal financial assistance triggers coverage.
KENNEDY: Well, you’re familiar — I have the memo here. I have 22 seconds left. Your quote of this: If the entire institution is to be covered, however, it should be on the basis of something more solid than federal aid to the students. I think most of the members of the Congress feel that if the aid to the universities, the tuition and the loans and the grants are going to be sufficient to trigger all of the civil rights laws, your memoranda here, If the entire institution is to be covered, however, it should be on the basis of something more solid than federal aid to the students. That’s your memorandum.
ROBERTS: Well, Senator, again, the administration policy was as I articulated it. And it was my job to articulate the administration policy.
KENNEDY: My time is up, Mr. Chairman.
Full morning transcript from CQ via Confirmthem.com (covering Specter, Leahy, Hatch & Kennedy)
Fast forward to just after noon. Grassley (R-IA) followed Kennedy, and was fairly bland. Grassley is a farmer after all. Disgraced (for plagiarism) former presidential candidate (1988) Joe Biden (D-DE) followed, and at one point interrupted Roberts after 15 seconds of an answer with the retort: “You’re filibustering” to which the room erupted in laughter at the idiocy of the comment.
Roberts for chief September 13, 2005
Posted by relantel in Rehnquist Vacancy, Supreme Court.add a comment
I have tended to post these things in the “Supreme Court” thread on the “PDT News Network” forum, but thought it appropriate to post some personal thoughts here, as opposed to actual news bits.
It is no secret that I side with what was the Rehnquist-Scalia-Thomas bloc of the 1994-2005 court, and that the three of them were the best writers on the court. While I don’t know how Roberts will rule, his writing and legal brillance heretofore lead one to believe he is in the mold of Rehnquist. This in and of itself is hardly surprising, as Roberts clerked for Rehnquist back when he was an associate Justice, and worked to help prepare Justice O’Connor for her confirmation hearings back in 1981.
Rehnquist was the sole remaining justice who had voted in the Roe v Wade case, and he often spoke or wrote about how Roe was wrongly decided and should be overturned. The question with Roberts is will he be as outspoken on the issue as Rehnquist was?
Roberts is clearly the right choice at the right time for this vacancy. As for the O’Connor vacancy, one can only hope Bush will follow through with his promise of a justice in the mold of a Scalia or a Thomas. I have faith that he will, as he has shown a knack for doing the opposite of conventional wisdom. They said it would be a woman to replace O’Connor; they all thought it was Edith Clement; he nominated Roberts. When Rehnquist died, they said he wouldn’t complicate the process by switching Roberts to Chief; he did just that, and in such a way as to make the Senate still confirm him prior to the Court’s October Term 2005.
There is no shortage of possible nominees for the O’Connor vacancy. The standard names of Alito, Garza, McConnell, Luttig, Owen, Brown, Jones, and even Estrada have made their way around the circles. The CW says Bush will wait until after Roberts is confirmed to name O’Connor’s replacement, but I would not be surprised to see Bush make his pick before the Judiciary committee is done with Roberts.
