Let’s Get the Senate Moving

May 12, 2002

by Charles E. Perry

Last fall, President Bush sent eleven names to the Senate for confirmation as federal judges. Eight of them still haven’t even had a hearing yet. With many federal benches being vacant, this is a gross neglect of duty by the Senate who are constitutionally mandated to give the President advice and consent on such appointments. The reason for the hold up? Partisan politics.

Democrats, you see, use the courts to enact that which they can’t get through legislation. The Democrats want liberal minded judges who are willing to fudge a bit on the Constitution. The men and women Bush wants to appoint are all highly qualified. They come from all ethnic and social groups in the country. The only problem with them is they aren’t willing to fudge on the Constitution, they want to follow it, and that makes them unacceptable to Democrats.

So, the Democrats are bound and determined to block them, using every parliamentary trick they can think of, even if they have to break the Senate’s own rules to do so. This is unconscionable, and we shouldn’t let them get away with it. We need those judges for a smooth functioning of our judicial system, and it’s time we made it clear that we will not support politicians who put party ahead of the nation. But what, you may ask, can we do it about? The answer is twofold.

First, we can write the members of the judiciary committee expressing our indignation over the holdup. You can find out who they are and access their websites here: United States Senate, Committee on the Judiciary. Send your protests to their snail mail addresses, which can be found on their websites, as I have come to learn that they tend to ignore email but pay attention to snail mail. Be sure to include Senator Daschle as one of the members you write, because he’s the architect of the obstruction.

Second, this fall we can give Bush a Republican Senate and House to work with. We do that with our votes. The Democrats have clearly demonstrated that they put party above the nation, and we simply don’t need politicians who do that. I know many Democrats claim they are merely doing what the Republicans did with Clinton, but that’s a flat out lie. The Republicans fought some of Clinton’s more radical appointees, but the fact is that half of our Federal judges are now Clinton appointees, and that simply wouldn’t be the case if the Republicans had been as obstructive then as the Democrats are now.

Judges fill an important role in our society, providing fair and impartial trials, and dispensing justice. They also should stand as bulwarks of protection for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. That’s what the men and women President Bush has nominated want to do, and what the Democrats in the Senate want to stop. I say, enough is enough. Time for the people to crack the whip on them.

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Charles E. Perry is a freelance writer living in Michigan. He has done a variety of things in his life, including Ward Supervisor at the State of Michigan's Maximum Security Mental Facility. His degree is in accounting, but he discovered writing and now spends his time hunched over a keyboard, hollow-eyed, looking for just the right word. Perry is the author of "How Government Should Work: A Look at the Federalist Papers and the Constitution of the United States," currently pending publication.

Send the author an E mail at Perry@ConservativeTruth.org.

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