Republicans are trying to use the "nuclear option" to seize absolute power and we all know the saying absolute power corrupts absolutely. They will appoint judges who will roll back years of progression protecting the people that keep this country running, we the people, the workers. Judge Janice brown is just one example with her extremist judicial philosophy that calls for courts to block congress in blocking things like guaranteed 40 hour work week,the minimum wage,The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. These judges have no regard to the future of our children, the middle class or the poor. We all know the nuclear option is a trick to eliminate the filibuster.One of the main arguments used by Bill Frist and other conservatives about employing the nuclear option to eliminate the filibuster of judicial nominees is that the Democratic use of the filibuster to oppose judicial nominations is unprecedented. He has called the use of the filibuster to oppose judicial nominees dangerous and radical. On his own website, there is a text of a speech he gave to the Federalist Society on November 11, 2004, where he said:
The Senate now faces a choice: either we accept a new and destructive practice, or we act to restore constitutional balance.
C. Boyden Gray, Chairman of the Committee for Justice, believes that the liberal's use of the filibuster to block judges violates the "constitutional principle of Separation of Powers. The Constitution grants the Executive primary power over judicial appointments while granting the Senate, as a body--not partisan factions within it--a check via majority vote. By altering that standard, the Senate Democrats are, in effect, arrogating power to the Senate from the Executive."
According to Gray, the liberal filibuster of judicial nominees "is absolutely unprecedented. Its history is two years old."
This is, simply put, a big fat LIE!! On March 8, 2000, thirteen Senators, all of whom were Republicans, attempted to filibuster Marsha Berzon for U.S. Circuit judge. You can read the roll call vote right here. Eight of these Senators are currently in the United States Senate: Allard (CO), Brownback (KS), Bunning (KY), Craig (ID), DeWine (OH), Enzi (WY), Inhofe (OK) and Shelby (AL). None of these eight have expressed opposition to the elimination of judicial filibusters, a practice they themselves once tried to engage in. Later that same day, those same thirteen Senators, in addition to Senator Bill Frist, attempted to filibuster the nomination of Richard Paez to US Circuit Judge. Can you spell flip flop?
Conservatives know that thee is a history of attempting to block judicial nominations through the use of the filibuster. They know this because some of them participated in such attempts. Bill Frist (the cat killer google it, it is true by his own admission)participated in one such attempt.
For Republicans, the real principle behind the attempt to destroy the filibuster for judicial nominees has nothing to do with the Constitution, It is, in short, a power grab! They want the world.
http://www.moveonpac.org/nuclear