FILIBUSTERS AND THE COURTS

Buchanan on why filibusters of judicial nominations must be stopped: "For decades, radical secularists like William Douglas, Earl Warren, William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and Harry Blackmun have abused their power as Supreme Court justices to impose their values and views on a society that opposed or even detested those values and views. We have seen voluntary prayer, Bible-reading and the Ten Commandments purged from public schools; the pornography industry, once a sordid criminal enterprise, given First Amendment protection; and children forcibly bused across town on judicial orders because of the color of their skin. We have seen abortion, once a crime in 50 states, declared a constitutional right, followed by the discovery that the Constitution protects homosexual sodomy, though Jefferson equated it with rape. We are no longer a democratic republic. The Supreme Court picks what cases it will hear, what laws it will permit to stand, what rights it shall invent. We overthrew a rule of kings. Now we are oppressed by a rule of judges".

Why the circuit courts are important: "Democrats have made much of the fact that the Senate confirmed 204 federal judges during President Bush's first term, while 'only' 10 judicial nominations were filibustered. However, it is not coincidental that 100 percent of the filibustered nominations were for the powerful circuit courts of appeal. ...[W]hat can only be described as a concerted judicial-filibuster campaign during the 108th Congress was truly unprecedented. Indeed, throughout the entire history of the U.S. Senate, neither the minority-party members in that chamber nor senators of the party that did not occupy the White House had ever before engaged in such a coordinated, protracted filibustering campaign to frequently deny up-or-down votes for one judicial nominee after another... Democrats have cleverly -- and shrewdly -- perpetrated their unprecedented judicial obstructionism exclusively against nominees to circuit courts of appeal. Relatively speaking, these courts have become vastly more powerful in recent decades. With the Supreme Court issuing fewer and fewer decisions, the circuit courts have become the final arbiters more often than in the past. Unless reversed by the Supreme Court, a decision by an appellate court remains the final determination on both legal and constitutional grounds throughout its jurisdiction."

Black conservative Craig DeLuz is outraged at the hatred of judicial nominee Janice Rogers Brown being displayed by Democrats. A small excerpt: "Janice Rogers Brown has become a lightning rod for liberals because she is Black. But as a conservative, she does not subscribe to typical liberal racist ways of thinking. Liberals think that Blacks cannot be successful without the government's help. They don't believe that Blacks can go out and get jobs, so the government must take care of them. They don't believe that Blacks can be successful in school, so they wish to lower the standards for graduation so that Black students will feel better about themselves. They believe that Blacks are victims of a racist system, so they should not be held responsible for their actions; as if we are incapable of controlling ourselves. This is what liberal racists think of us. And sadly, they have been successful in getting most Blacks to buy into this view of themselves. It's nothing more than psychological slavery. But Janice Rogers Brown challenges that image. A successful Black woman with Brown's humble beginnings and yet also possesses conservative world view, is contrary to the dependent characterization liberals wish to paint of us"

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