May 18—Republican Senate leaders appear ready to follow through on their threat to use the so-called nuclear option to outlaw judicial filibusters, ending more than 200 years of a system of Senate checks and balances between the majority and minority parties.
Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) says he intends to bring two of President George W. Bush’s most ultrareactionary federal appeals court nominees—Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen—to the Senate floor for a vote as early as today.
If Democrats filibuster Brown and Owen, Frist has vowed to set in motion a process to circumvent Senate rules and end filibusters for judicial nominees. It currently takes 60 votes to end a filibuster, but Frist is seeking to end filibusters on judicial nominees by asking the president of the Senate—Vice President Dick Cheney—to rule filibusters out of bounds for judicial nominees, dubbed the “nuclear option” because it is such an extreme attack on Senate rules.
Workers Sent More than 80,000 Faxes and E-Mails Protesting the Nuclear Option
Through the AFL-CIO Working Families Network, America’s workers have sent more than 80,000 e-mails and faxes to senators urging them to reject Frist’s attempts to eliminate the judicial filibuster.
“We urge Senators to listen to the American people. Instead of abusing their power to push through extremist nominees, Senators should be calling on the president to nominate more consensus, mainstream judges and call on President Bush to nominate mainstream candidates to help create a fair and balanced judiciary,” says AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney.
The Senate has approved more than 200 of Bush’s federal court nominees. Senate Democrats have used the filibuster to block confirmation of Rogers Brown, Owen and a handful of other extremist nominees who have troublesome records on workers’ rights, civil rights and other important working family issues.
If confirmed, these extremist jurists would have lifetime tenure on the bench and the opportunity to issue legal decisions with far reaching impact on civil rights and workplace rights and protections, such as the right to form a union.
System of Checks and Balances Will Be ‘Destroyed’
“It’s absolutely unconscionable that the president and Senate Republican leaders are prepared to destroy our system of checks and balances over a handful of unfit, unqualified judges like Rogers Brown and Owen,” says Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
While serving on the California Supreme Court, Rogers Brown has authored many confrontational and harsh opinions—often in dissent—that would seriously undermine civil rights and workers’ rights. Nominated by Bush for a lifetime appointment to the prestigious U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Rogers Brown calls programs such as Social Security “cannibalization” by seniors. She also has argued that the First Amendment protects the use of racial slurs in the workplace.
“It would be insane to give a lifetime appointment to someone with the views of Janice Rogers Brown. When she says older workers are cannibalizing their young through Social Security, it’s clear she’s forgotten where she came from and what Social Security means to people of color,” Clayola Brown, president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, told a Capitol Hill rally in Washington, D.C., May 16.
As a member of the Texas Supreme Court, Priscilla Owen, nominated to the 5th Circuit, has said it’s OK for employers to make injured workers promise not to sue if they want to collect certain medical benefits. She also effectively tried to rewrite Texas civil rights law to make it harder for workers to prove their rights were violated.
Frist also has indicated he will soon push for the conformation of two other extremist nominees who have been stopped by Senate Democrats through the filibuster: 9th Circuit nominee William Myers, and 11th Circuit nominee William Pryor.
If the filibuster is eliminated, it would make it much easier for Bush to pack the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, with extremist judges as vacancies continue to occur during Bush’s remaining term in office.
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