The Urgent Fight for the Courts
Something has been lost in the noise of the debate on the filibuster, namely the time crunch involved in getting solid judges appointed to the bench. There are several things to note.
1) There will be vacancies soon in the Supreme Court. No one knows how soon is soon, but these people aren’t going to live to 150. I’m sure a few are waiting to see how the filibuster fight plays out.
2) There is an election in 2006 coming up and there are endangered Republicans this time around (Santorum comes to mind).
3) Bush is gone in 2008. There is no solid conservative that looks to be emerging anywhere close as a frontrunner. Sure, it’s too soon to tell, but Rice and Guiliani are not pro-life. McCain is more interested in preserving the status quo that actually moving to do much about pro-life issues. He’s certainly no conservative. People mention Arnold, but a amendment is unlikely and he’s not precisely pro-life himself anyway.
The facts are that whatever judges Bush gets through will be around for awhile and he could shape the court for a long time given the opportunity. However, once he’s out of office, there is not much hope of getting a solid pro-life President to appoint solid pro-life and/or conservative judges. The Democrats know this. They know McCain or Guiliani’s picks will be much more to their liking, they just have to stall for rain. (This says nothing about the decent possibility of a Democrat president).
The dam must be knocked down and now. Until it is, there will be no Supreme Court vacancies except in the case of death or significant illness (more significant than Rehnquist’s apparently). At best, they can hope for Rehnquist to step down and let the Dems filibuster his replacement that has no hope of changing the composition of the Court (except perhaps lurching it leftward). The would be a PR nightmare.
But as long as no solid conservatives get through there will be no ability to remake the juristocracy that so desperately needs to be undone. If the roadblock doesn’t get moved, there will be no hope to overturn Roe v Wade for decades. The winner of the filibuster fight gets control of the courts. If the GOP wants to play second fiddle to the DNC even though they are in the majority, the DNC picks the courts and the window slams shut.
Now is the time to end the juristocracy and restore the Republic… will the GOP have the courage to do it?
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Remember, there are some conservatives who will run in 08: Frist, Brownback, Allen.
Your argument that something must be done now is right on though. Let’s up the Senatie invokes the ‘connstitutional option; soon.
Comment by David - Catholics for Bush | May 10, 2005