Democratic Senator Joe Biden, who sits on the judiciary committee currently holding hearings for Samuel Alito, has suggested that nominees are so mum about where they stand on current issues that the confirmation hearings have little value.
"The system's kind of broken. Nominees now, Democrat and Republican nominees, come before the United States Congress and resolve not to let the people know what they think about the important issues."
After watching this hearing and before that of now Chief Justice Roberts, I have to agree. The Senate should just do as Biden suggests and argue a nominee's merits on the Senate floor. These hearings have no point. Nominees can either decline to answer questions, or if they give answers, they are so vague they can be construed to support any side - even if previous statements and other evidence can clearly tell us how they are going to vote (and admittedly, this happened way before Roberts and Alito). No matter how much Arlen Specter fools himself, Alito will likely vote to overturn Roe if given the chance and will be similiarly conservative on other issues. In fact, no rational person can really question this given his record and prior statements and just general common sense. But because of how this process is now, no one can nail him on it. And unfortunately, at this point, I would say it's unlikely the Democrats will be able to mount a fillibuster. I predict a party line committee vote and a (mostly) party line vote on the floor.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
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2 comments:
I couldn't agree more. There's just no point to this drama anymore. The nominees are punished either way for revealing their actual feelings on any contenious issue, so they keep quiet as much as they possibly can and hope to squeek through a vote by simply not pissing off enough Senators. It's ridiculous. Just argue their merits and get the damn vote over with.
For most Americans their reasoning is just ludicrous. Of course, nominees shouldn't say how they will vote, but that applies to cases that might come before the Supreme Court. But I see that as cases that are on the docket, or are tied up in apellate courts and are likely to be taken up. That doesn't me you can't talk about the outcome of previous cases (in other words, would you have voted the same way?) or if you agree with a general principle (like "the right of privacy covers abortion"). It just doesn't make any logical sense that the one person who actually makes a difference can't talk about this stuff when ever law student in the country can.
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