Politics,  Supreme Court

The Wine for Winners Challenge Watch: Democrats to Filibuster O’Connor Seat?

September 21, 2005 /

MSNBC has Democrats revive filibuster threat, Big battle brewing over O’Connor spot on Supreme Court.

President Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court to replace Sandra Day O’Connor appeared to be skating on thin ice Wednesday, even though the president hasn’t yet revealed who the nominee is.

In the war of nerves leading up to Bush’s announcement of his next high court nominee, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and other Democrats were signaling Wednesday that the filibuster — extended debate in order to kill a nomination — is an option they might use.

Referring to chief justice nominee John Roberts, who looks certain to win Judiciary Committee approval on Thursday and confirmation by the full Senate next week, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. said, “I don’t think anybody would call him an extremist, or a divisive or confrontational nominee. But if the next nominee is, I think there’d be a real possibility of a filibuster.”

Flap previously had The Wine for Winners Challenge.

Flap has accepted the challenge.

Read about it here:

I’ll take the deal:

The deal is: Dems filibuster at least one judge. If that happens and it isn’t shut down (e.g. via a successful cloture vote or the nuclear option), I win. If there is no filibuster — or if there is one, but it gets shut down — you win.

Term: End of Bush Presidency

Bet: A bottle of California Central Coast Pinot Noir or Reisling – not to exceed $20.00

Flap

Lieberman was one of 14 Democratic and Republican senators who signed a May 23 accord in which they pledged to not support a filibuster of a judicial nominee unless there were “extraordinary circumstances” which made it impossible to approve the nominee.

Lieberman said Wednesday that under the terms of that accord, “we reserved the right for each of us to make the determination individually to decide that a nominee was outside of the mainstream, the circumstances were extraordinary, and therefore we would attempt to require 60 votes for confirmation.”

Is Lieberman the messenger?

Do the Democrats have the votes to filibuster and filibuster successfully a nominee like Appeals Court Judges Priscilla Owen or Janice Rogers Brown?

Hinting at a filibuster, Reid said Tuesday it would be “a real poke in the eye with a sharp stick if they give us (any of) the ten (judicial nominees) we turned down” by filibusters in 2003 and 2004.

Those ten include Brown and another federal appeal court judge, Priscilla Owen.

A Republican senator who serves on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, said Reid’s implied filibuster threat “doesn’t sound too ‘implied’ to me.

Stay Tuned.

Will Flap, Patterico and Xrlq win?

Technorati Tags: , , , ,