Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Compromising Democracy - Deal struck by 'moderates' preserves Senate, screws the rest of us


The Black Commentator's cartoonist known as Twenty Nine draws his own conclusions about Bush's thoughts regarding soon-to-be-federal-judge Janice Rogers Brown..

Judgment day must be near: Discourse is rough everywhere in America except where it should be—in Congress. Striking a blow against democracy, the entrenched members of the nation's most exclusive club preserved their civil atmosphere Monday but poisoned the civic atmosphere for the rest of us.


As the Washington Post notes this morning:

Fourteen Republican and Democratic senators broke with their party leaders last night to avert a showdown vote over judicial nominees, agreeing to votes on some of President Bush's nominees while preserving the right to filibuster others in "extraordinary circumstances." The dramatic announcement caught Senate leaders by surprise and came on the eve of a scheduled vote to ban filibusters of judicial nominees, the "nuclear option" that has dominated Senate discussions for weeks. The deal clears the way for prompt confirmation of three appellate court nominees—Priscilla R. Owen, Janice Rogers Brown, and William H. Pryor Jr.
If you don't know who Janice Rogers Brown is, you haven't been reading The Black Commentator, which recently wrote:

Brown is a disciple of the Federalist Society, far-right lawyers who hate almost everything that has occurred since ratification of the Constitution, with the exception of the establishment of corporations as virtual legal persons.
In an October 2003 profile of Brown, The Black Commentator, borrowing from the Guardian (U.K.), noted:

The California state judge “has such an atrocious civil rights record she makes Clarence Thomas look like Thurgood Marshall," said Rep. Diane Watson (D-CA) at a Congressional Black Caucus press conference, last week. "She's cut from the same cloth as Clarence Thomas," declared Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's non-voting representative in the House, and one of the caucus's leading legal lights. Full link
posted by Cynthia   Permalink| Comments(1)|

Post a Comment

---------------oOo---------------