POLITICO 44
Republican senators have already blamed the breezy confirmation process for Elena Kagan on simple math, saying Kagan’s confirmation to the Supreme Court is already ensured with 58 Democrats in the Senate.
But the GOP has more than just a math problem with Kagan. It has a passion problem — the party, which has used judicial nominations to stoke the culture wars for more than a decade, appears to have lost its edge on judges.
Now some conservatives worry that if Republicans can’t gin up a real battle over a left-leaning high court nominee from President Barack Obama in an election year, how can they be expected to fight dozens of lower-court nominees who are getting lifetime appointments to the federal bench?
“Maybe we have fallen down on the job,” Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told POLITICO. “I think a lot of Republicans tend to say, ‘Well, the president gets whoever he nominates.’”
It’s a striking departure from just five years ago, when judicial nominations were such a hot-button political issue that then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) threatened to fundamentally restructure Senate rules to break judicial filibusters. Senators spent an all-night session debating judges, and Republicans raised tons of money from their base.
Part of Kagan’s resiliency stems from her lack of a paper trail, she has not got pinned down on thorny subjects, and the slew of other pressing issues that dominate the nation’s attention.
But some Republicans griped privately over what they saw as Sessions’s largely unfocused attacks. Further, some worry whether Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, an old-bull legislator not known for his passion on legal issues, will be a real fighter when he becomes the top Republican on the judiciary panel.
There are other dynamics at play as well
Despite the fact that social conservatives still care deeply about judicial nominees, economic issues are far more dominant in this election cycle. And by not mounting a filibuster, which has little chance at success anyway, Republicans can claim the high road and pressure Democrats to follow suit when future Republican presidents nominate prospective justices.
source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39381.html
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But the GOP has more than just a math problem with Kagan. It has a passion problem — the party, which has used judicial nominations to stoke the culture wars for more than a decade, appears to have lost its edge on judges.
Now some conservatives worry that if Republicans can’t gin up a real battle over a left-leaning high court nominee from President Barack Obama in an election year, how can they be expected to fight dozens of lower-court nominees who are getting lifetime appointments to the federal bench?
“Maybe we have fallen down on the job,” Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told POLITICO. “I think a lot of Republicans tend to say, ‘Well, the president gets whoever he nominates.’”
It’s a striking departure from just five years ago, when judicial nominations were such a hot-button political issue that then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) threatened to fundamentally restructure Senate rules to break judicial filibusters. Senators spent an all-night session debating judges, and Republicans raised tons of money from their base.
Part of Kagan’s resiliency stems from her lack of a paper trail, she has not got pinned down on thorny subjects, and the slew of other pressing issues that dominate the nation’s attention.
But some Republicans griped privately over what they saw as Sessions’s largely unfocused attacks. Further, some worry whether Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, an old-bull legislator not known for his passion on legal issues, will be a real fighter when he becomes the top Republican on the judiciary panel.
There are other dynamics at play as well
Despite the fact that social conservatives still care deeply about judicial nominees, economic issues are far more dominant in this election cycle. And by not mounting a filibuster, which has little chance at success anyway, Republicans can claim the high road and pressure Democrats to follow suit when future Republican presidents nominate prospective justices.
source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39381.html
Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/IGiu
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