Filibuster

What can be expected from Senate Republicans in the upcoming term?  Other than gridlock and blatant partisanship, apparently not very much.

Over the weekend, new Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that, unless Democrats acquiesce to votes on President Bush’s judicial nominees, the Republicans would not hesitate to resort to the filibuster

The Senate's next Republican leader issued a veiled threat Friday to block action on legislation if Democrats refuse to allow confirmation votes on President Bush's troubled judicial nominations.

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who will become minority leader Jan. 4, told the conservative Federalist Society not to feel bad about the Senate election results because Republicans will hold 49 seats in a body that requires 60 votes to end a filibuster and bring legislation or presidential nominees to a final vote.

If the “Democrats want our cooperation, they'll give the president's judicial nominees an up-or-down vote,” McConnell said.

As we’ve noted before, if McConnell and others are really concerned about judicial nominees not getting an up-or-down vote, perhaps they can start hounding Sen. Sam Brownback to lift his hold on the nomination of Janet Neff.

In addition, considering that just last year McConnell was chomping at the bit to get rid of the filibuster once and for all when it came to judges, it is sort of odd that he’d now be threatening to filibuster other things if judges don’t get votes. And does McConnell really think that even lower court judges who are voted down in Committee must get a vote, despite the clear practice to the contrary on judges as well as legislation in Senates controlled by both parties?  

This sort of bogus “Democrats-had-better-do-as-we-say” claim to bipartisanship looks to be a key part of McConnell’s strategy heading into the new session, positioning the GOP in such a way that they can try and blame Democrats for any showdowns in the Senate

“I think that they’ll have to deal with us.”

Soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s confidence could fool you. You’d think he wasn’t giving up majority digs for minority ones, the way he talks.

But he is — though you had better believe he’s ready to fight for minority rights.

In a brief interview at the Capitol with National Review Online on Thursday, the Kentucky Republican said that he has “a good personal relationship” with incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but plans on “cooperat[ing] only if they move to the center” policy-wise. He’s as curious as everyone else is if the buzz about there being more conservative Dems in the Senate now is true. “We’ll see if they really mean it.”

It is hard to understand why McConnell thinks Democrats need to “move to the center,” considering that they just picked up six seats in the Senate – five of which were held by Republicans Senators who had received 100% ranking from the joint Family Research Council Action/Focus on the Family Action voter guide and the endorsement of Gary Bauer’s Campaign for Working Families.

If anyone needs to “move to the center” it ought to be Senate Republicans, since it was five of their own right-wing colleagues who lost their seats in the last election. 

After all, it is because of these losses that McConnell is now the incoming Senate Minority Leader.

Last week, according to the Washington Daybook, a “group of black pastors [held] a press conference, beginning at 1 p.m., to endorse Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele in Maryland's Senate race.”  Among those endorsing Steele was Bishop Harry Jackson who likes to refer to himself as a Democrat primarily because “being able to say I'm a registered Democrat disarms many of the people who want to write me off.” 

Apparently, Jackson thinks that by calling himself a Democrat means he can get away with saying things like

Gays have been at the helm of a fourfold strategy for years, but the wisdom behind their spiritual, cultural, political and generational tactics is clearly satanic.

Given his views, it is no surprise that the Right has eagerly embraced Jackson, featuring him as a speaker at two Family Research Council events – “Justice Sunday,” where he complained that “Black churches are too concerned with justice” and “Justice Sunday II” – designed to push for the confirmation of right-wing Bush administration judges, and inviting him to appear at a rally alongside Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist supporting the use of the "nuclear option" to do away with the filibuster in order to confirm Judge Janice Rogers Brown.

Recently, Jackson declared that his top reasons for working to elect Republicans are

As a black evangelical, I’ve had to think about the unpleasant prospect of a Democratically-controlled House and Senate. If the Democrats are in power, the following problems will occur: 1) There will be no protection of traditional marriage, 2) Abortion-on-demand will be encouraged, 3) Religious freedoms will be attacked …

Joining Jackson in endorsing Steele was Rev. James Thompson of Integrity Church International in Landover, MD - and apparently Jackson’s fear that religious freedoms would be attacked by Democrats was shared by Thompson’s wife, Emma Jean Thompson, who is responsible for this

Sellers said the campaign knew nothing about a mailer that arrived yesterday urging support for Steele and declaring that Democratic Senate candidate "Ben Cardin Promises to Attack Jesus Christ, Pastors, Churches and Christians and to Take Away Blacks' Freedom If He Is Elected."

The piece criticizing Cardin, who is Jewish, was produced and distributed by Emma Jean Thompson, a Bowie woman who attended a news conference yesterday endorsing Steele.

As we noted last week, Sen. Sam Brownback has placed a hold on one of President Bush’s judicial nominees, Janet Neff, because Neff allegedly presided over a commitment ceremony for a lesbian couple back in 2002.  

Despite the fact that Neff was nominated to a seat on the US District Court for the Western District of Michigan, which is about 1,000 miles away from Brownback’s home state of Kansas, he has taken it upon himself to stall her nomination until he can determine whether she did something he considers illegal (even though a symbolic commitment ceremony is not illegal in any state.)

To that end, he has reportedly gotten the Justice Department involved

Mr. Brownback has asked the U.S. Justice Department for a formal legal opinion in addition to asking Judge Neff specific questions.

Of course, last year, Brownback set out his principle for dealing with judges, saying

“All of the president’s nominees—both now and in the future—deserve a fair up or down vote, regardless of whether some members of the Senate feel they can be filibustered based on whatever they define to be extraordinary circumstances.”

Apparently, that standard doesn’t apply to any nominee about whom Brownback has concerns.  

Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jr. thinks that America is “at a crossroads in terms of thought and political ideology.”

This is the moment in which the conservative movement can win many converts from the black community. In order to accomplish this, conservatives must understand the real concerns of the average African American.

According to Jackson, who launched his “Black Contract with America on Moral Values” last year, the “real concerns of the average African American” are topped with banning same-sex marriage and rejecting “tax-and-spend policies directed at the poor.”

Since joining forces with the far Right – including membership in the influential Arlington Group – Jackson has been a frequent spokesman for right-wing causes. He spoke at the “Justice Sunday: Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith” religious rally in support of Bush’s extreme judicial nominees, and told the television audience at “Justice Sunday II” that “You and I can bring the rule and reign of the Cross to America.” He's scheduled to speak at the Family Research Council's "Values Voter Summit" later this month.

Gays in particular seem to motivate Jackson’s political efforts. In an article in Charisma magazine, Jackson wrote that the “wisdom behind” the “gay agenda” is “clearly satanic,” and he called for an aggressive “counterattack.” He asserted to The New York Times that “Historically when societies have gone off kilter, there has been rampant same-sex marriage.”

Jackson writes that in 2004, he “decided to make a difference by calling on black Christians to vote for George Bush because his morality, governing approach, and conservative values most aligned with theirs.”

The large number of blacks who crossed the color line of the Democratic Party and voted for President Bush showed that dramatic changes were happening.

In fact, only 11 percent of African Americans voted for Bush in 2004, and one year afterwards the president's approval rating among blacks dropped to 2 percent, suggesting that blacks have yet to embrace the "economic and social values" of the far Right.

Ever since losing his job with Sen. Frist a few years ago, Manuel Miranda has refashioned himself as a one-man, right-wing force to be reckoned with on judicial nominations.  Even before stepping down, Miranda was working behind the scenes, orchestrating the GOP’s 2003 “reverse filibuster” protest.  

After a short-lived disgrace caused by his run-in with basic ethics, Miranda returned to the scene with the launching of the National Coalition to End Judicial Filibusters, since renamed the Third Branch Conference.  Since then, Miranda has been behind just about every right-wing grassroots effort to force confirmation of President Bush’s judicial nominees. 

As the original name of his organization suggests, Miranda, along with dozens of other right-wing leaders, pushed Senate Republicans hard to eliminate the use of the filibuster via the “nuclear option.”  Though the effort failed because of the emergence of the “Gang of 14,” Miranda pressed on, writing dozens of columns calling for the confirmation of John Roberts and, according to The Hill, almost single-handedly killing Harriet Miers’ nomination.