From PFAW's press release today:
It is widely expected that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will use expected filibusters against Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen and California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, who could be brought to the floor as early as next week, as an excuse to trigger his “nuclear option” – a parliamentary abuse of power that would break Senate rules in order to eliminate the checks and balances provided for more than 200 years by the Senate’s filibuster rules and tradition of extended debate.
“Senator Frist appears ready to force a confrontation on nominees who have already been rejected for the appeals court,” said Neas. “A 95 percent approval rate for Bush judges isn’t good enough for the far right. So Senator Frist will try to justify gutting the fundamental constitutional principle of checks and balances to help a couple of judges get lifetime jobs that more than 40 U.S. Senators think they are unfit to hold. That is a terrible tradeoff for the American public.”
Update: For all you need to understand just how extremist these women are, take a look at who's pushing their confirmations. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) personnifies the radical right. Here's what he said today about Janice Rogers Brown:
[Sessions] said Brown was the type of judge the country needs, who has “a reverence for our Constitution, who will approach these issues with independence, an open mind, a lot of common sense, a willingness to work hard and an ability to communicate clearly and effectively.”
Yet, her nomination is opposed by every African-American organization that has voiced an opinion about her fitness to serve, including the NAACP, the National Bar Association, and the Congressional Black Caucus. She's a Clarence Thomas wannabe.
If confirmed, she will go from being a state court judge in California to the D.C. federals appeal court, which is considered a stepping stone to a nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court.
CivilRights.Org had this to say today about Rogers Brown and Owen:
Rogers Brown's record on civil rights and discrimination cases is not just troubling - it is appalling. Her record demonstrates not just hostility, but active antagonism toward victims of discrimination. She has proven time and again that she has little or no respect for established precedent or the law. And most disturbingly, she is entirely unable, or unwilling, to keep her ideological preferences off the bench and outside the court room.
Priscilla Owen is no better. She has been repeatedly chided for trying to rewrite or override the law to suit her ideological vision. President Bush's own U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, called one of these attempts 'an unconscionable act of judicial activism.' Owen isn't known for fairly interpreting and applying the law, she's known for rewriting it to fit her worldview.
Like the ten other recycled Bush nominees, Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen don't deserve lifetime appointments to the federal bench. There are hundreds of more qualified, better suited judges out there - more than 200 of President Bush judicial nominees have been confirmed by bipartisan support - yet the president seems determined to ram through a couple of previously rejected judicial activists.
It is absolutely unconscionable that the president and Senate Republican leaders are prepared destroy our system of checks and balances over a handful of unfit, unqualified judges like Rogers Brown and Owen."
