I called Mr. Warner's office and expressed my opinion on the outrageous practice of filibustering judges. Warner has yet to express support for ending the use the filibusters to prevent judges from making it to the floor of the Senate for a nomination vote.
I will continue to call his office.
Midlothian
Norfolk
Abingdon
Roanoke
Washington, D.C.
Colson has a good post on this issue.
Colson says,
"And who injected religion into this debate over judges in the first place? When Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor—one of the most decent men I have known in my life and a great public servant—was nominated for the Eleventh Circuit Court, his nomination was filibustered to death. Why? Because, as a believing Catholic, he is pro-life and made no excuses for his position. It was blatant bigotry on the part of filibustering senators.
So it was as well with Judge Charles Pickering, from Mississippi, when he was nominated for the Eleventh Circuit. One of Pickering’s offenses, according to groups that opposed him, was to tell a defendant after he was sentenced that he ought to look up Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship when he got to prison and straighten his life out. For that and other equally heinous charges, he was denied his seat on the Appellate Court."
Senators Schumer and Feinstein have been well quoted as saying they will oppose anyone with deeply held religious views. The message? Individuals with shallow views who selectively follow the doctrines of the faith (i.e. like Senators Leahy and Kennedy, for instance) are invited to apply. All others will be demonized as extremists and will be filibustered.
How sad. Is it a religious litmus test? No, not according to Charles Krauthammer. It is something more clever.
The huge overriding issue, of course, is the looming confirmation of at least one supreme court justice if not more. If the filibustering nonsense is not de-fanged, don't count on anyone being considered for the Supreme Court with an ideology to the right of Justice Souter. It won't happen.
I wish the Supreme court were not so important. I wish Supreme court justices would stick to philosophy of interpreting the constitution as written. Of course, that is wishful thinking. The reality is that most of the judges sitting on the Supreme Court seem to agree with the philosophy of a former supreme court justice who said "the Constitution is what the judges say it is".
I know my liberal friends are ok with that. Not me. That scares me to death, quite frankly.