Republican senators tried a filibuster against President Obama’s left wing nominee for a judgeship on the federal court of appeals, but Democrats thwarted the tactic.
Democrats on Tuesday crushed a Senate filibuster against a controversial appeals court nominee, demonstrating to Republicans they can't stop President Barack Obama from turning the federal judiciary to the left.
The 70-29 vote limited debate over the qualifications of U.S. District Judge David Hamilton of Indiana, and assured his elevation to the Chicago-based appeals court. Sixty votes were needed to end the filibuster, but confirmation only requires a simple majority of the 100-member Senate.
Ten Republicans repudiated their own party leaders and voted to limit debate. The Obama administration made a crucial decision from the outset by getting the support of Hamilton's home-state Republican senator, Richard Lugar.
The vote emphatically warned Republicans that with only 40 senators, they're too outnumbered to prevent Obama from making major inroads into a judiciary that was populated over eight years with conservative judges chosen by President George W. Bush.
Republicans have objected to holding a vote on Hamilton's confirmation since June, when the Judiciary Committee reported his nomination favorably to the full Senate.
Conservative Republican senators and their judicial-watching outside groups then launched a major political assault on Hamilton.
They criticized his rulings against Christian prayers in the Indiana legislature and against a menorah in the Indiana Municipal Building's holiday display.
Conservatives were furious that Hamilton struck down part of an Indiana law requiring women to make two trips to a clinic for counseling before they could get an abortion. He said the requirement placed an undue burden on a woman's constitutional right to choose to end a pregnancy. . . .
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who led the opposition to Hamilton, argued that Hamilton's record met his definition of extraordinary circumstances.
He not only attacked Hamilton's judicial record, but criticized his work in the distant past: vice president for litigation and board member of the American Civil Liberties Union in Indiana; and a fundraiser for two months for the Association of Community Organizatons for Reform Now (ACORN).
Recall that this is exactly what conservatives warned would happen if President Obama were elected: a new generation of leftist judges with lifetime appointments.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes, it was warned of and people did not listen and elections have consequences. But, I don’t think it is accurate to say the administration did something great in defeating the filibuster. Many republicans railed against the use of the filibuster with regard to judges during the Bush years – it appears that for at least 10 of them their position was one of principle.
The SCOTUS landscape is likely in for the biggest sea change over the next three years.
Hamilton sounds like he’ll be a good judge.
There’s no more discredited critic of the judiciary than Sessions, whose derogatory comments about blacks prevented his appointment to the bench. Yet he remains a hero to the fundamentally unChristian religious right.
Yes your right Sam becuase Session does not like someone he must be a good judge. Love the logic there.
Joe, Hamilton is not fit for the bench because Sessions dislikes him. Hamilton stands on his own. But you can sometimes judge a man by his enemies, and that Sessions dislikes Hamilton speaks well for Hamilton.
Sessions dislikes Osama bin laden as well. So, per Sam’s logic …….
God help us if anyone thing that it is “UNconservative” to debate the merits of taxpayer paid for prayers or the religious content of holiday displays or that a judge who votes against these this is not conservative enough.
republicans have about half the votes still. richard lugar is not a communist.
get real. this is not a test case for anything and means nothing.
But, FWS, I noticed that you didn’t comment on the judge’s striking down a reasonable abortion restriction, designed to ensure that the woman really does have a choice. The deliberate expediting of baby murder warrants a protest.
DonS I’ve read enough of your comments here recently to see that your grip on matters is not always as firm as could be, but you certainly can see that women already have a choice under Roe v. Wade et seq. Thus, forcing a woman with such a choice to undergo two separate counseling sessions does not enhance that choice but contrains it. Hence, it is sensible to strike down such laws.
Everyone knows why these counseling requirements become law: to discourage or impede a woman from exercising what, under the law, she has every right to do: have an abortion. Such laws are passed by the anti-abortion side not to facilitate abortions.
The anti-abortion side can have Roe v. Wade overturned only by getting an anti-abortion amendment to the US Const. That’s the only honest way to approach it.
I’m not sure why this post is titled “Republicans can’t stop confirmation …” when the Republicans didn’t even do what they could to stop the confirmation. How about: “can’t and won’t”?
Also from the article: “Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, did not vote.”. Hmm. Wonder how her gubernatorial campaign is going.
J – the post Roe case law is clear. The “right” to chose is not absolute and states are free to impose procedural hurdles and checks and balances to ensure that hasty decisions are not being made. Thus, a consitutional amendment is not in any way shape or form the only honest way to approach it.
J, thanks for the vote of confidence regarding my “grip on matters”
My point was that the types of laws which Hamilton overturned serve the purpose of ensuring that women really DO have the right to choose that Roe granted them. Information is important to a proper choice and abortion mills such as Planned Parenthood do not tend to advise women of available alternatives to killing their baby, nor of some of the issues of regret they will deal with in the aftermath of the abortion.
I trust that you really don’t think that two mere counselling sessions are too much to require before irrevocably taking a child’s life? A little inconvenience seems a small price to pay to possibly save a human life.
As for your point that a Constitutional amendment is the only way to overturn Roe — I heartily disagree. The justices who handed down the Roe decision certainly didn’t rely on any constitutional authority — they created a fundamental right out of whole cloth. That is a decision that can be overturned by a future court, which understands the many errors and poor logic in the Roe decision. In the meantime, it is certainly proper to put reasonable restrictions on an unfettered ability to kill another human being.
Joe, I think it is the only honest way if you view abortion as the taking of human life. The procedural checks you mention are reviewed to ensure that they do not place an ‘undue burden’ on a women’s right to choose, which Roe recognized as a constitutional right. Sure, legislatures and Congress can enact lots of procedural hurdles, but if abortion is murder, which I frankly suspect few ‘pro lifers’ truly believe, then the way to stop it is to change teh constitution. This is how slavery was abolished, how women got the right to vote, how prohibition as enacted and repealed, etc. It’s a method dependent on the voters.
SCOTUS will likely not overrule Roe. While the faint hope drives many to vote Republican in order to get stealth justices (who never say in their confirmation hearings that will overturn Roe), it hasn’t worked for 35 years.
Churches should be worried about the legal actions they’ll face in the next few years with so many new strident hostile judges.
Expect more kangaroo court rulings akin to what comes out of the 9th Circuit.
a 70 – 29 vote means alot of republicans simply did not vote. lugar is not a foam at the mouth liberal last time I checked. or are you all telling me that now he is?
don, i am not a constitutional judge or attorney. roe v wade is law whether we like it or not. I am not sure Joe is right as absolutely as he puts it… I guess for right now “right” is what the courts say…
i am with J. most pro-lifers do not treat abortion as murder. they are not seeking the death penalty for mothers who abort or their doctors. they call pro-abortion candidates like gw bush “antiabortion” even though there is not ONE national candidate, including GW who is consistently against legalizing ALL abortions.
so where does that leave us Don? where I am: we do what we can politically to reduce the number of abortions to as close to zero as possible, and minimize the colateral damage as much as possible that abortions cause. there are many ways to approach things if THIS is the goal. reversing roe v wade is not a magic bullet. i wish people would stop saying it is!