Never-ending Deception and Manipulation; The Obama, Reid, Pelosi Doctrine

One major benefit to the filibuster rule is that it substantially reduces the chances for there to be wild swings in the laws of this country. Imagine, for example, the passing of an Obamacare-type law one year, to be followed by its repeal four years later, then re-instated (with minor modification) 6 years later. That could be quite damaging to the country.

"Changing the rules, in violation of the rules, by a simple majority vote is not a one-time action," he warned. "If a Senate majority demonstrates it can make such a change once, there are no rules that bind a majority, and all future majorities will feel free to exercise the same power, not just on judges and executive appointments but on legislation." ~ Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

"In the hands of a tyrannical majority and leadership, that kind of emasculation of the cloture rule would mean that minority rights would cease to exist in the U.S. Senate.” ~ Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.
 
 Senate Republicans are not in any way "neglecting their constitutional duty" by not approving each and every Presidential appointee. Apparently, some of our politicians have completely missed the purpose of Congress. It is not, nor should it be, the Senate's job to go along with whatever the President wishes. The entire purpose of having a Congress is to place a checks and balances on the President's power. If a party, which represents a significant portion of the nation, disagrees with a President's policies or nominations, it is truly that party's CONSTITUTIONAL PATRIOTIC DUTY to follow the wishes of those who put them in that office. The constitutional obligation for Congress to provide oversight has been time and time again neglected by the current administration which has chosen to put their own political interests in front of transparency and truth. Remember this day Progressive State-ists! You will rue this day, and likely sooner than you think. Another case of the ends justify the means...

Harry Reid’s Nuclear Hypocrisy

November 21, 2013 11:29 AM

Harry Reid is set to “go nuclear.” He wants to end the filibuster as it applies to appellate court nominations — not by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, as Senate rules require, but by a simple majority. And given the short memories now in evidence, he may just succeed.
On Monday, for the third time in less than a month, Senate Republicans filibustered an Obama nominee to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That’s the court that’s checked the president more than once, as when it said he couldn’t make “recess appointments” when the Senate wasn’t in recess. So in a Tuesday closed-door lunch, Reid moved closer to ending the practice, and it’s reported he picked up crucial support from California Democratic senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer along with Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy among others.
The hypocrisy here should not go unnoticed. Although the filibuster for legislation has a long history, prior to 2003 it was seldom used to block executive-branch nominations — and appellate-court nominees in particular. In fact, Democrats themselves began using it this way in the 108th Congress, after they lost the Senate in the 2002 midterm elections. Here’s the backstory.
Start with Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court’s December 2000 decision that effectively decided the presidential outcome, creating a firestorm among Democrats, especially among the legal professoriate. On January 13, 2001, for example, 554 professors from 120 law schools took out a full-page ad in the New York Times condemning the Court’s majority for having acted not as judges but as “political proponents for candidate Bush.” And at a Democratic retreat a month later Yale’s Bruce Ackerman urged members not to confirm a single Bush nominee for the Supreme Court until after the 2004 elections.
Democrats got their break in May when Vermont senator James Jeffords left the Republican party. That switched control of the Senate to the Democrats, who immediately turned their attention to the eleven appellate court nominees then before the Senate Judiciary Committee, two of them Democrats — a gesture from Bush. Those two were immediately confirmed. The rest would not even get hearings. Instead, Democrats began calling for “litmus tests” — explicit demands that nominees state their views on everything from abortion to affirmative action to Congress’s unquestioned power to regulate anything and everything.
But the near lock-down on appellate-court nominations did not end with the 2002 midterm elections, which switched control of the Senate back to the Republicans. It was then that Senate Democrats began the unprecedented filibustering of appellate-court nominations. The most egregious case was that of Miguel Estrada, whose life story was pure American dream. First nominated by President Bush in May 2001, Estrada finally withdrew his name from further consideration some 27 months later, after seven failed cloture votes in the next, 108th Congress.
Things came to a head early in the 109th Congress when Republicans themselves, still in control of the Senate, threatened finally to “go nuclear” — to end the appellate-court filibusters Democrats had introduced only in the previous Congress. That was headed off when the bipartisan “Gang of 14” reached a compromise: Democrats would filibuster nominees only in “extraordinary circumstances,” they agreed, and Republicans would not use the nuclear option. That compromise held for the rest of the 109th Congress — though not without difficulties — but it became moot after Democrats regained control of the Senate following the 2006 midterm elections since they no longer needed to filibuster Bush nominees.
In sum, after the 2000 election was decided, Senate Democrats sat on their hands for two years as Bush appellate-court nominees twisted in the wind. In the minority after the 2002 elections, those Democrats then initiated the filibuster for many of Bush’s nominees. Only after the 2005 Gang of 14 compromise was imposed did things settle down. And after the 2006 elections, Democrats no longer needed to filibuster.
So is the Republican use of the filibuster today simply fair turn-around — with Democrats in no position to complain when Republicans use tactics they themselves introduced? If so, that would be enough to illustrate the hypocrisy of today’s Democratic protests. But that’s not what’s at issue here. In the D.C. Circuit matter, which has driven Senator Reid to the nuclear option, Republicans are not raising ideological objections to Obama’s nominees — as Democrats did when they filibustered Bush’s picks. Their objection, rather, is that these judges are not needed, because the workload of the court is so light. In fact, speaking of hypocrisy, Democrats, in the minority in the 109th Congress, used that very rationale to urge Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter in a July 2006 letter not to confirm any additional Bush nominees to the D.C. Circuit — and none was confirmed after that letter from Senators Leahy, Feinstein, Schumer, and Durbin was sent, all of whom are still on the committee. Yet now, when the court’s workload is even lighter, Democrats cry foul when Republicans point that out.
In fact, look at the numbers from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. In 2006, written decisions per active judge had declined by 17 percent since 1997. Since 2006 they have declined another 27 percent. In 2006, the total number of appeals filed had declined by 10 percent since 1997. Since 2006 they have declined another 18 percent. The Administrative Office ranks the twelve circuits using various caseload benchmarks: 2013 is the 17th straight year that the office has ranked the D.C. Circuit last on both appeals being filed and appeals being terminated. There simply is no need for more judges on the D.C. Circuit when those there now do not have enough to do — unless, of course, the aim is to have a bench more sympathetic to rule by presidential diktat, which may be precisely why Senator Reid wants to go nuclear.
Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/364508/harry-reids-nuclear-hypocrisy-roger-pilon

D.C. Circuit Breakers

The White House wants to pack a court whose judges are underworked.

Nov. 20, 2013 7:15 p.m. ET

We remember when a "judicial emergency" was the Senate's way of calling attention to vacancies based on a court's caseload. Those were the good old days. Now Democrats are threatening to change Senate rules if Republicans don't acquiesce to their plan to confirm three new judges to the most underworked appellate circuit in the country.

That's the story behind the fight over the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, with the White House trying to pack the court that reviews much of its regulatory agenda. On Monday Senate Republicans blocked the third nominee to the D.C. appellate court in recent weeks, and Democrats with short memories of their judicial filibusters in the Bush years are claiming this is unprecedented. Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats are threatening to resort to the so-called nuclear option, which would let the Senate confirm judicial nominees by a simple majority vote.

This is nothing but a political power play because the D.C. Circuit doesn't need the new judges. It currently has 11 authorized judgeships and eight active judges—four appointed by Democratic Presidents and four by Republicans. The court also has six senior judges who hear cases varying from 25% to 75% of an active judge's caseload. Together they carry the equivalent caseload of 3.25 active judges, according to numbers from Chief Judge Merrick Garland. That means the circuit has the equivalent of 11.25 full-time judges.

That's more than enough considering that the court's caseload is the lightest in the country. For the 12-months ending in September, the D.C. Circuit had 149 appeals filed per active judge. By comparison, the 11th Circuit had 778 appeals filed per active judge for the same period. If all three nominees to the D.C. Circuit were confirmed, the number of appeals per active judge would be 108, while a full slate on the 11th Circuit would be 583 appeals per judge. The national average of appeals per active judge is 383. The closest to the D.C. Circuit is the 10th Circuit, at 217 appeals.

Liberal Senator Pat Leahy claims that these comparisons don't matter because the D.C. Circuit handles complex rulemakings by federal agencies and sensitive national security cases. But the truth is that all the circuits handle complicated cases. And even many regulatory cases have been migrating to other circuits as some of the D.C. Circuit's stars have taken senior status.

According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, 42.9% of the D.C. Circuit's caseload is made up of administrative appeals of federal rules or regulations, the highest percentage of any circuit. In raw numbers, the D.C. Circuit is not carrying the heaviest load. That honor goes to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Democrats are in a rush to confirm as many judges as possible because they know the clock is ticking on the Obama second term. Liberals have criticized the White House for its slow pace of nominations, but that isn't the fault of Republicans. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on Judiciary who has led the fight against more D.C. Circuit confirmations, has been entirely consistent. In the Bush years he opposed the nomination of a twelfth judge for the court on workload grounds.

GOP Senators watched for years as Senate Democrats blocked George W. Bush's nominees to the D.C. Circuit, including the eminently qualified Miguel Estrada and Peter Keisler. Republicans are right to say that the D.C. Circuit now has a full complement of judges following the unanimous confirmation of Obama nominee Sri Srinivasan in May.

Mr. Reid and his fellow Democrats are claiming that even if they establish a new standard of 51 votes to confirm appellate judges and executive-branch officials, they can keep the 60 vote standard for the Supreme Court. They're kidding themselves. If they change the rules to pack the D.C. Circuit, Democrats should understand they are also setting that standard for future Supreme Court nominees opposed to Roe v. Wade.

 Source: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303936904579179791038352758

 Further evidence:

Harry, Barack and Yucca Mt.

They pack the appeals court that just called out their lawlessness.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304337404579214183070687104

 

Tom C. Korologos: The Senate Goes Nuclear, Fallout to Come

The Constitution is chock-full of provisions to protect minority rights. Harry Reid thinks he knows better.

 Nov. 22, 2013 7:02 p.m. ET

 Classical Greeks called it "ochlocracy." Alexis de Tocqueville referred to the "tyranny of the majority." James Madison warned of "the Superior force of an interested and overbearing majority." Someone else said, "It's like two foxes and a hen voting on what to have for dinner." 

Now "nuclear option" has found its way into popular discourse about majority rule—thanks to Senate Democrats who on Thursday broke the filibuster rule and ended the traditional supermajority of 60 votes needed to confirm judicial and executive-branch nominees. In leading the charge, Majority Leader Harry Reid erased 225 years of precedent and altered the soul of the U.S. Senate. 

Welcome to a Senate that no longer is "the world's greatest deliberative body." Welcome to a Senate that has now formally completed the polarization of the two parties. Uncharted waters lie ahead. The Founding Fathers, taking note of various definitions regarding so-called majority rule, made it very clear when they drafted the Constitution that its operating principle would not be majority rule, but rather protection of the rights of the minority.Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Charles Schumer after a news conference Thursday about changing Senate rules. To that end, the Constitution is chock-full of requirements to protect the minority. The original premise of the American system is checks and balances. Three branches of government—legislative, executive and judicial, in that order—are the subject of the first three Articles of the Constitution. Each limits the power of the others. Consider: 

• "Each State shall have at Least one Representative." 

• "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State"—regardless of size or population.

• "The Senate shall have sole Power to try all impeachments . . . and no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present."

• "Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings," and can punish members for bad behavior—but can expel them only with a two-thirds vote.

• Before a bill becomes law, it must "be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve, he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated." If both houses then pass the bill by a two-thirds vote, the section of the Constitution continues, then it "shall become Law."

• "The President shall be Commander in Chief . . . . He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur."

• "The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments which, in either case, shall be valid . . . when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States."

In addition to these examples, the Constitution in several places makes the point that Congress shall make no laws (not even with a 100% vote of both houses of Congress) respecting establishment of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for redress of grievances.
Furthermore, a significant number of states have adopted requirements that taxes may only be raised if approved by a supermajority. Some states have adopted requirements that ballot measures be approved only via supermajority vote.
The protection of the minority is prevalent throughout other parliamentary systems that have two-thirds requirements—Canada, India and the United Kingdom. Even the European Union has certain qualified majority provisions designed to protect the interests of small member nations. And the United Nations Security Council requires a supermajority for substantive matters.
One final thought for Senate Democrats. At some point it is entirely possible, and perhaps increasingly likely, that Republicans will again control the White House and the Senate. So today's majority might want to keep in mind what a wise person once advised: "When you build a gallows, be sure you know whom you are going to hang."

Source: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304791704579212380162170154