The Town Hall Archives

Jared · Last edited by Jared on Sun Feb 16, 2003 6:44 pm; edited 1 time in total

I've written a political opinion piece and while it's not all that great, I'd like to get it pulished somewhere online. Nowhere prestigious... nowhere anyone's ever heard of... but somewhere. :)

I'm going to try more and more to get what I write published somewhere, as you can never have your works published if you don't submit them anywhere.

So, I'm going to post this piece here... I'd appreciate general comments, specific reports of errors in grammar or logic, etc. Thanks in advance, everyone!

NOTE: If you vote in the poll, please be honest. I can take criticism! And that applies to comments you have as well. However, I would ask that you don't base your vote in the poll on whether or not you agree with me. If you like Estrada but think I wrote poorly, vote "Terrible." Conversely, if you dislike Estrada or the Republican Party but thought my writing was decent, vote accordingly. I am really looking for honest critique, corrections and criticism... :)

Here it is:

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Three Lessons from the Estrada Confirmation Process

If there's anything that Senate Republicans should have learned from the confirmation process for President Bush's highly qualified judicial nominee Miguel Estrada, it's that the Democrats can be highly hypocritical and are willing to use every available recourse of the law, however obscure or stretched, to get their own way. Of course, any Republican officeholder that didn't already know this should be kicked out of office for incompetence and a complete lack of understanding of how things work on Capitol Hill.

But the confirmation process for Mr. Estrada teaches more than just that Democrats cannot be trusted. It teaches that Republicans must put aside worthless attempts to dumb down their policy – or their nominees – in order to appeal to Democrats, realizing that with such attempts, conservative values always lose out in the end. For a prominent example, I need only refer you to President Bush's education bill, a piece of legislation that was of at least decent quality until willingly handed over to Ted Kennedy in an absurd gesture of goodwill and bipartisanship.

The Democratic Party is going to accept nothing less than pure liberalism, a place where the Republican Party must never tread. Too often, Republicans take out "controversial" portions of a bill to make it more passable, apparently forgetting – or not comprehending – that they are in the majority again and it's the Democrats who are supposed to be begging for the deals. Too often, it seems like Republicans are unable to accept that they can actually push forward a conservative bill. They cede far too much power to the Democratic Party, being too timid to make a move.

That has to stop, as the Estrada situation illustrates. The Democrats, realizing that they would lose in a floor vote, are filibustering the nomination. And, since the days of passionately standing for something despite personal discomfort are apparently long since gone, they have at their disposal a relatively new "gentleman's filibuster," which is essentially a way for them to declare desire to filibuster the nomination, then move on to other business. At one time, a filibuster would have required the Democratic Party to care so much about this issue that they would be willing to speak on it until the one party gave in. The filibustering party than had to explain to constituents why other important pieces of legislation never made it to the Senate floor and it was up to the people to decide of the filibuster was needed or if it was simply keeping the chamber from getting on with other important business.

With the new system, there would seem to be none of the traditional difficulties or repercussions. Of course, the Senate rules have not changed, but Republican reaction has. When the Democrats declare intent to filibuster, the party moves on to other issues in the belief that they don’t have a chance to prevail instead of forcing the Democrats to live up to their promise and actually filibuster the nomination. The Republicans must not give in; if they wish to prevail, they have to go on the offensive. Senator Frist has indicated that he will put pressure on Senate Democrats, holding long sessions on Estrada in an attempt to force a vote. This is good progress, but more needs to be done. If the Democratic Party wishes to filibuster a vote on Estrada, the Republicans should let them actually do it. Then, the Democrats would have to explain to their constituents why they held up the Senate for days. Let them try.

The Republicans should learn not to give in to Democratic demands concerning Estrada in the "spirit of bipartisanship."

Speaking of bipartisanship, that's another lesson of the Estrada confirmation hearings and it's tied in very closely with the first: quite simply, don't try to be "bipartisan." The Democrats are not going to be won over by an attempt to work with them and are going to call any legislation to the right of that proposed by Barbara Boxer as "partisan politics at its worst." It makes one wonder how many times the worst possible can be achieved in a single week – and also makes one realize that making overtures to the Democratic Party is a failed effort. It's been tried for years and each time, the result was disaster.

Republican legislators must realize that they were elected by conservatives to represent them through conservatism. If the voters desired a liberal, they would have voted Democratic. With Democrats constantly claiming that Republicans don't hold a mandate either because of the small size of their majority in the upper chamber or because of close voting in their home state, many Senators are beginning to believe it, failing to understand that the mandate to legislate from a conservative position came with their election victory, no matter what the margin. Whether a candidate wins by twenty votes or twenty thousand doesn't change the fact that he did indeed win and has all the mandate he needs. And once in Washington, he must not forget who put him there in the first place: conservatives. To legislate from the center or to frequently give the Democrats what they want is more than foolish; it is unfair to the people who worked so hard to get a Republican into office.

The third and final lesson I find in the debate over Estrada is that the Republican Party must never stoop to the levels of their Democratic colleagues. Recently, the party has been excitedly touting their Hispanic members. In a way, that's great. However, when the Republican Party stoops to making the Estrada nomination a question of race, it has hit a very low point. Fortunately, many Republican Senators are stressing that Miguel Estrada was chosen because of his qualifications, not the color of his skin or the place of his birth. However, some have insisted on declaring that if Senate Democrats vote against Estrada, they are voting against the rights of Hispanics. We complain about the antics of men like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who tie race into every issue, but when we do this, how are we any better?

Miguel Estrada is a fine man and is well suited to the position to which President Bush nominated him. He has answered every question directed to him and has an outstanding reputation and a litany of supporters hailing from both sides of the aisle. Even the liberal American Bar Association, proclaimed by several prominent Democrats including Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judicary Committee, to be the gold standard for measuring the elegibilty of nominees for judicial positions, has awarded Estrada their highest possible ranking.

He deserves the position and it would be a terrible loss to the nation if he were not confirmed. However, there is little to gain and much to lose by Republicans making this into a vote on Hispanics instead of a vote on an individual nominee. If the Republicans continue this course and successfully make that flawed argument, they will have opened up a Pandora's Box of arguments for liberals to use when Republicans object to their nominees in later years. The most liberal activist judges, if black, will have to be confirmed lest Republicans are branded as racist. Of course, that foolish charge has been lobbed for years at conservatives every time the opposed an unqualified individual who happened to not be a white male, but next time, we may have to suffer through hearing the voices of Republican Senators talking about how Estrada has to be confirmed "because he's Hispanic" on the Democratic TV ads, with the announcer intoning, "but now, with the tables turned, Senate Republicans have changed course. Call your senator and tell him that you don't appreciate the hypocrisy."

To open the Party up for attack – and in this case, it would be legitimate – would be incredibly foolish. The Grand Old Party is the party of freedom for all, not favors for a few. As both parties court the Hispanic vote, the Republicans should remember that a principled stand should be taken without future elections taken into consideration. We should support Miguel Estrada because he is qualified, not because he is Hispanic. Doing what's right shouldn't be based on polling data or winning over a voting bloc. In the past, the Democrats have been the party of leadership by poll results. As far as I'm concerned, that's one Democratic stronghold that the Republican Party should never attempt to challenge.

Bennett Charles · Town Villain Joined: 24 Nov 2002 Posts: 2410

Umm, the first sentence was great!

Jared · Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2003 6:43 pm Post subject:

And the rest wasn't? Wink

Or was that as far as you got?

Or was it really pretty bad and I should avoid anyone else seeing it at all costs?

Dave · Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2003 7:38 pm Post subject:

I have always been an honest guy so I voted honestly.

It was terrible!

Plez don't post it on the web anywhere! If I couldn't understand, most other people won't be able to understand it.

Back to being honest, I honestly couldn't read the first sentence.

Dave
P.S. That isn't copyright is it? Great! I'll get straight to up-loading to my site.

Coralfish · Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2003 7:44 pm Post subject:

In my own very unexperienced opinion, I felt, just reading through the article that paragraphs 8-10 and 12 were the strongest and most convincing(to me). As I am not an accomplished critic by any means, I would be wasting my time to make any suggestions, but that is just my opinion at least. Overall I thought that it was a good well-written article, and that it could be even a bit longer. Wink

Jared · Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2003 8:06 pm Post subject:

Dave · Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2003 8:10 pm Post subject:

Hey, it's not as bad as mine!

Dave

Coralfish · Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2003 8:16 pm Post subject:

or mine, for that matter.....

The Sandman · Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2003 11:56 pm Post subject: Re: Your article

Jared,

I thought your article was excellent. It sure underscores a lot of my feelings concerning the Estrada nomination. I'm pretty disappointed in the Republicans for not following through on their threat to carry the confirmation hearings into the weekend (the snow would have really made it interesting). I'm going to a town meeting with Senator Richard Shelby tomorrow. I'm going to reiterate to him that the Republicans can't cave on this one. If they do, we can kiss getting any more true conservatives on the Supreme Court goodbye.

I am the webmaster for the Limestone County (Alabama) Republican Party. With your permission, I would like to put the article up on the website. Feel free to inspect the site (http://www.limestonegop.org) and then give me your answer.

---The Sandman

Jared · Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2003 8:00 am Post subject:

Sandman,

Thank you for your comments. I would be honored if you placed that article on the Limestone County Republican Party website! When you put the byline in, would you mind linking it to my email address (jaredw86@nauticom.net) so in case anyone reads it and has a comment, they can contact me?

As for Senator Shelby coming through for a town hall meeting, I'm glad you'll get to attend and I think he will make clear that he wants to work hard to get Estrada confirmed.

I agree with you that the Republicans can't cave on this -- we don't want President Bush's Supreme Court nominees to have to be new David Souters or John Paul Stevenses. I want the new justices to be the quality of the current three conservatives on the bench, Chief Justice Rehnquist and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarance Thomas. If they can't push through a lower-level nomination, however, they are unlikely to stand firm when it comes to Supreme Court nominees either.

Fortunately, I believe that Republicans WILL force the Democrats to filibuster. Supposedly, the Senate Republicans on average had been in session longer than the Senate Democrats because the Dems were rotating so only 41 of them were necessarily there at one time, giving others time to rest in case of a filibuster, whereas all the Republicans had been there. That gave the GOP a disadvantage, one of the reasons they postponed. Another was the raised terror alerts. Shortly after it jumped to orange, there were whispers around Washington that it could go to the highest level and Capitol Hill could be evacuated. It wasn't a great time for forcing the Democrats to act, apparently.

But as I said, I believe it to be postponed, not canceled, and would expect to see the Democrats left to filibuster the issue in the days ahead.

An interesting question: how long can they possibly go?

Strom Thurmond once spoke for 26 hours and others in the past did nearly that, but I don't think that today's Senators are prepared for anything like that. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see that most couldn't speak for more five hours. Now, Robert Byrd might be the exception there, as he was one of the legendary filibustering Senators a long time ago.

So let's make the average six hours per Senator. THere are for all practical purposes, 49 Democrats. Yes, I know that Jumpin' Jim is an Independent, but we all know where he sides on every issue. This one is not an exception. Three of those forty-nine Democrats - Zell Miller, Fritz Hollings and John Breaux, I believe - support Estrada and there's some speculation that Ben Nelson and/or Mary Landrieu might get on board, so lets assume that in the end, forty-five people are filibustering. Now, 6 hours times 45 is 270 hours. Then, once one cycle is completed, senators are free to speak one more time... add another 270 hours. That's 22 and 1/2 days, at the end of which the nomination would still go through.

And that's on the low side for the time...

It will NEVER happen. If the Republicans stand firm and force the filibuster, the Democrats will cave after a while even if the Republicans never can get the 60 votes needed for closure. I mean, how would you feel going back home to your constituents and explaining to them how you helped hold the Senate up doing nothing for twenty-two days. And since the Democrats have only forty-five people supporting their cause and in order to not break the filibuster, must have forty-one in the chamber at all times in case the GOP calls for a closure vote, only four Democrats may be at home at any time during that period, day or night. That won't be easy to explain to their kids and spouses, either.

Not that it would be easy on the GOP, but they at least could send more people home at a time. Still, as long as the Democrats persist, there will be a lot of cots set up inside that chamber.

And the Democrats would really get blamed. Remember the charges of gridlock against the Republican Party when they held things up for a few days over one of Clinton's proposals? They got slammed in the media and people back home blamed them for stopping important Senate work for two or three days.

Now, we're about to be at war. We have important bills on the table. And if we make them do it, the Democrats will be filibustering for a few WEEKS during this time? A lot of conservatives call Tom Daschle "The Obstructionist" now... if this happens, all the liberals will too.

Let 'em try! Smile