Roberts hearings over
“That concludes our hearing,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter declared at 7:10 p.m. Thursday. The adjournmen came after eight minutes of closing remarks by Specter and ranking Democrat Patrick Leahy.
In his closing remarks. Leahy said that “we have as strong a record as we’re going to have.” That was an indication that Democrats on the Committee had concluded that the Bush Administration will not provide additional documents those senators have sought, regarding Roberts’ service as deputy Solicitor General in the Justice Department.
Specter said that the leaders of the Committee had an agreement that the panel would meet one week from Thursday, on the 22d, to vote on the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts, Jr., to be Chief Justice. If, as expected, he wins Committee approval then, debate on the Senate floor probably will begin on Monday, Sept. 26, with a final vote targeted for later that week.
As of now, there is no expectation that President Bush will nominate someone for the seat of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the other vacancy on the Court, until after the Senate has completed action on Judge Roberts’ nomination. That means that Justice O’Connor will have to decide whether to participate in the Court’s pre-Term Conference on Sept. 26, when the Justices consider whether to grant new cases for review. She has said her retirement would become effective when her successor was confirmed.
Is it too soon to speculate that virtually every Democrat - and Sen. Chaffee - had already made their minds up to vote against Roberts before the hearings even began, and haven’t changed their mind?
It’s not one specific area of questions, but the whole tenor of the questioning of this nominee by the Democrats. As it seems to me:
Either they have intentionally set themselves up - by asking a series of ludicrous and irrelevant questions, but doing so very passionately and intensely - for a mass vote against him, on the pretext that they wanted to be reasonable but have been compelled by his answers (and lack thereof) to vote against him.
Or, if that was not their intention, that’s the corner into which they’ve backed themselves. The problem with teasing the lions is that once they’re hungry, if you don’t feed them, you end up being the meal. The dems have spent so much time and effort trying to paint what I would regard as an utterly fraudulent picture of what the court does, and therefore why Roberts shouldn’t sit on it, that I just don’t see how any of them have room to back down without facing a massive backlash from the very base they’ve been playing to. This goes to an extent to people like Teddy, but it applies a fortiori to someone like Russ Feingold, who has serious Presidential ambitions, and whose Presidential ambitions have been fuelled primarily by the Kossack crowd, the very lions whom the dems have been whipping into a frenzy.
The whole process seems to have basically been an excercise in Republicans congratulating themselves and Democrats trying to boost their coffers and make their base angrier. I would say that this is a very cynical point of view, but I’m not sure there’s such a quantity as “too cynical” where politics is concerned.
Comment by Simon — September 15, 2005 @ 7:57 pm
From my vantage as an independent observer, there were plenty of members of *both* parties that had already made up their minds about Judge Roberts long before the hearings began. Simon’s attempt to lay this failing at the Democrats’ feet alone is therefore comically misplaced.
Indeed, I am quite certain that Roberts will attract a significant number of ‘yes’ votes from Democrats, who will clearly realize that this is as close to a ‘moderate’ nominee as they were going to see.
Aside from conceivably Senator Chaffee, I would be quite surprised to see a single ‘no’ vote from the Republicans — even those who hoped for a much more conservative nominee than Judge Roberts.
This set of hearings wasn’t unique. At most Congressional hearings, no matter what the topic, and no matter who is in power, most of the Committee know precisely what outcome they want, and what the witnesses may say is mere window dressing.
Comment by Marc Shepherd — September 16, 2005 @ 8:51 am
Lyle said, “Justice O’Connor will have to decide whether to participate in the Court’s pre-Term Conference on Sept. 26, when the Justices consider whether to grant new cases for review.”
A posting over at Underneath Their Robes said that Justice O’Connor has hired one of her OT2004 clerks to work for the first part of OT2006. This suggests that Justice O’Connor does intend to continue participating in the Conference, and that she will be on the bench for the Court’s October sitting.
Whether she will actually participate in the decision on any argued cases is another matter. It is not inconceivable that she could participate, and perhaps even write the opinion, if there are cases in the first sitting that can be quickly disposed of (and there usually are).
Obviously, as many others have observed, her participation on any of the difficult cases would be pointless, unless Bush’s nominee to replace her runs into serious difficulties.
Comment by Marc Shepherd — September 16, 2005 @ 8:57 am