Republicans have unearthed a speech by Vice President Joseph R. Biden from 1992 in which he said then-President George H.W. Bush’s attempt to fill a Supreme Court vacancy should wait until his successor came into office in 1993. The GOP ... By Stephen Dinan and Tom Howell Jr. - The Washington Times - Monday, February 22, 2016
It may be Vice President Joseph R. Biden who dooms President Obama’s hopes of reshaping the Supreme Court and picking a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia after Republicans unearthed a 1992 speech in which then-Sen. Biden said it was “not fair” to let a lame-duck president make such an important decision.
Mr. Biden, who was chairman of the Judiciary Committee at the time, was laying down a marker against President George H.W. Bush, saying once the “political season” had started, the president should back down and wait until after the election.
Mr. Biden went so far as to say that Mr. Bush shouldn’t even bother to nominate anyone, much less have the Senateapprove the pick — exactly the stance Republicans are now taking toward Mr. Obama.
“These are the Biden rules,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican who now chairs the Judiciary Committee, said Monday as he recounted the Biden speech on the Senate floor.
The attack comes as Republicans are stiffening their spines after a wobbly start to the political jockeying after Scalia’s death Feb. 13.
“One would have to go back more than a century to find a scenario where a president’s nominee for the Supreme Court was confirmed by the opposition party in the Senate when the vacancy occurred during an election year,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican. “I’m not about to break new ground in the Senate, particularly when any nominee could so drastically shift the balance of the court.”
The death of the high court’s most forceful and consistently conservative justice has created an opening for Mr. Obama, who, if he were to win confirmation of a committed liberal justice, could send the bench careening to the left.
But standing in his way is not only a committed Republican opposition, which controls the Senate, but Democrats’ own long history of words and deeds that suggest they would not have approved a Republican president’s pick if circumstances were reversed.
The White House has already had to say Mr. Obama now regrets taking part in Democrats’ 2005 attempt to filibuster Justice Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. — the first time a partisan filibuster was ever launched against a Supreme Courtnominee.
Mr. Biden’s comments cut even deeper, with the former senator saying in his 1992 speech that not only does the Senate have the right to reject nominees, but presidents shouldn’t even try to send one to Capitol Hill in the middle of an election.
“Once the political season is underway, and it is, action on a Supreme Court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is over,” Mr. Biden said in his 90-minute speech, which was so long it spanned 15 pages of the Congressional Record. “That is what is fair to the nominee and is central to the process.”
He delivered the speech on June 25 of that year, in anticipation of a justice retiring at the end of the court’s term. In the event, no retirement came and his threat to stall a nominee was never tested.
In a statement Monday, Mr. Biden said his comments were being taken out of context. He pointed to other parts of his lengthy speech in which he called for senators and the executive branch to try to repair the process, which he said had been broken by ideological fights.
“While some say that my comments in June 1992 contributed to a more politicized nomination process, they didn’t prevent the Senate from fulfilling its constitutional duties, because there was no vacancy at the time,” he said. “During my career on the Judiciary Committee, I ensured the prompt and fair consideration of nine Supreme Court Justices, and the current Senate has a constitutional duty to do the same.”
Mr. Biden said during his time as chairman he held hearings on several nominees he opposed, and Democrats gave them floor votes — though they were defeated.
Among those was Judge Robert Bork, whose defeat at the hands of Senate Democrats helped ignite the partisan warfare over judges that continues to this day.
Democrats in the Senate now waved off Mr. Biden’s comments as irrelevant to the debate.
“It doesn’t make any difference to me. I wasn’t here then. I don’t believe that, and I don’t believe in the process of keeping the Supreme Court without a full complement for a year,” said Sen. Robert Menendez, New Jersey Democrat. “Equal justice under the law, which is what it says over the front of the Supreme Court, means a court that is fully functioning and can make decisions and hopefully doesn’t find itself tied too often.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, said voters want to see the president make a nomination and the Senate vote on it. “They want hearings and a vote. They want action,” he said.
Early on, polling suggested Americans were split on that question, but more recent polling indicates Democrats are winning the argument. A new survey released Monday by the Pew Research Center found 56 percent said the Senateshould hold hearings and a vote, compared to 38 percent who said the next president should make the nomination.
That Republicans would reject an Obama nominee seems certain. The question has instead become whether Mr. Obama should even bother to send a name up to the Senate, and whether the Senate would bother to hold hearings.
Sen. Susan M. Collins, Maine Republican, said she wanted to see the Senate go ahead with hearings if Mr. Obama submits a nominee. “For my part, I think regular order is the best way to proceed,” she said.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that Mr. Obama has the “authority to nominate.” But he said the Senate has “the right to withhold its consent.”
“Given that we are in the midst of the presidential election process, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and I believe that it is today the American people who are best positioned to help make this important decision — rather than a lame-duck president whose priorities and policies they just rejected in the most recent national election,” Mr. McConnell said as he closed the Senate session.
President Trump had a great opportunity to repair some of that damage by nominating a moderate candidate for the vacancy, which was created when Justice Antonin Scalia died last February. Instead, he chose Neil Gorsuch, a very conservative judge from the federal Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit whose jurisprudence and writing style are often compared to those of Justice Scalia.
If Judge Gorsuch is confirmed, the court will once again have a majority of justices appointed by Republican presidents, as it has for nearly half a century. For starters, that spells big trouble for public-sector labor unions, environmental regulations and women’s access to contraception. If Trump gets the chance to name another justice, the consequences could be much more dire.
In normal times, Judge Gorsuch — a widely respected and, at 49, relatively young judge with a reliably conservative voting record — would be an obvious choice for a Republican president.
These are not normal times.
The seat Judge Gorsuch hopes to sit in should have been filled, months ago, by Merrick Garland, the chief judge of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, whom President Barack Obama nominated to the court last March. Judge Garland, a former federal prosecutor and 20-year veteran of the nation’s most important federal appeals court, is both more moderate and more qualified than Judge Gorsuch.ADVERTISEMENT
That meant nothing to Senate Republicans, who abused their power as the majority party and, within hours of Justice Scalia’s death, shut down the confirmation process for the remainder of Mr. Obama’s presidency. There would be no negotiations to release this hostage; the sole object was to hold on to the court’s conservative majority. The outrageousness of the ploy was matched only by the unlikelihood that it would succeed — until, to virtually everyone’s shock, it did.
The destructive lesson Senate Republicans taught is that obstruction pays off. Yet they seem to have short memories. After Senate Democrats refused to attend votes on two of Mr. Trump’s cabinet picks on Tuesday, Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said, “We did not inflict this kind of obstructionism on President Obama.” Even absent such dishonesty, any Democratic impulse to mimic the Republican blockade by filibustering Judge Gorsuch would be understandable. But Senate Democrats should be wary of stooping to the Republicans’ level, especially because any such effort is likely to prove futile, since Republicans have the votes to simply eliminate the use of the filibuster against Supreme Court nominees. The hearings should, however, present Democrats with an opportunity to probe Judge Gorsuch’s views.
So what might a Justice Gorsuch mean for the court? Like Justice Scalia, he is an originalist, meaning he interprets the Constitution’s language to mean what it was understood to mean when it was written — an approach that has led both men to consistently conservative results.
Judge Gorsuch’s similarities to Justice Scalia extend into several areas of the law. Since his appointment in 2006, by President George W. Bush, he has voted consistently in favor of religious-liberty claims, such as requests for exemptions for private companies and religious nonprofits that oppose the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate.
He is even more conservative than Justice Scalia in at least one area — calling for an end to the deference courts traditionally show to administrative agencies, like the Environmental Protection Agency, that are charged with implementing complex and important federal laws.
Given the events of recent days, senators should press Judge Gorsuch on how he would approach constitutional questions that have already arisen out of Mr. Trump’s actions as president, like his order barring refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, or his alleged violationof the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
While Judge Gorsuch’s views on abortion are not known, he has written extensively about assisted suicide and euthanasia. In his book on the topic, he wrote that “human life is fundamentally and inherently valuable, and that the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.” By himself, Judge Gorsuch would not upset the court’s balance on abortion rights or affirmative action, but if one of the more liberal justices or Justice Anthony Kennedy step down during Mr. Trump’s presidency, a solidly right-wing majority could quickly overturn those precedents.
Supreme Court nominations are among the most important decisions a president makes, and certainly the most enduring: A nominee like Judge Gorsuch could sit on the court for more than three decades. At a rally last summer Mr. Trump said: “Even if you can’t stand Donald Trump, you think Donald Trump is the worst, you’re going to vote for me. You know why? Justices of the Supreme Court.” That may have played well on the campaign trail, but Mr. Trump’s failure to choose a more moderate candidate is the latest example of his refusal to acknowledge his historic unpopularity and his nearly three-million-vote loss to Hillary Clinton. A wiser president faced with such circumstances would govern with humility and a respect for the views of all Americans.
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment