<p>Students, joined by some well-known faculty, have been at it 24/7, demonstrating against alumnus Senator Frist in front of the student center his family donated to the university. They are filibustering; they’ve read Jon Stewart’s America, various textbooks, etc. They’ve made The Washington Post, CNN, and many other papers and blogs, and they’ll be on Hardball tonight. Here’s the webcam: <a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/~petehill/filibuster.html[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/~petehill/filibuster.html</a>
(They are all supposed to be writing their final papers right now.) I post this here rather than in the Cafe because it suggests that the new dean of admissions is getting results, in terms of finding students who will be political activists! Not sure the administration expected them to be demonstrating against a well-known alum and major donor. ;)</p>
<p>Glad to see my junior high school classmate (Frank Wilczek) there Let’s hear it for the post-Hargedon era! ;)</p>
<p>Wow, mini, I bet he was no dummy in the seventh grade. ;)</p>
<p>He was amazing - he was fourth in the class (I was 2nd) - but we three all knew he was WAY smarter than any of us. We were pygmies next to Frank, and we all knew it. He finished all the thinking that resulted in his Nobel before the age of 23. Not a nerd though. Football player, track star, musician (self-taught classical violinist, at a time when no one played violin in schools where we lived). Son of a Polish janitor. Girls fell all over him. (I’m still jealous.)</p>
<p>Mini, I posted an article about this on a bullentin board devoted to the Houston Rockets, which is frequented by many University of Houston and UT Austin students, encouraging them to start a Frist filibuster.</p>
<p>A good decision for opposing the GOP on this is the following:from an interview w. Senator Biden on Hardball.</p>
<p>MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.</p>
<p>This afternoon, Senate Majority leader Bill Frist offered Democrats 100 hours of debate on President Bush`s judicial nominees, including those future nominees for the Supreme Court, if they agreed on an up-and-down vote on each nominee.
Democrats have so far not agreed to this proposal. And earlier today, I asked Democratic Senator Joe Biden of the Judiciary Committee what he makes of the offer.
SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: It`s ridiculous.</p>
<p>Look, this whole thing underscores they don<code>t understand the Senate. Up until 1947, there wasn</code>t – you needed a unanimous consent. From the time of the Constitution to 1947, you needed unanimous consent in order to get a judge through. They changed the rule in 1917 to say you could have - - three-fifths of the senators could vote to cut off debate on legislation, but they said but not for nominees, because the founders never intended that.</p>
<p>This is all about the independence of the judiciary. When you go to the point where you can have 51 senators make a decision on every single – imagine if that rule had been in place when Roosevelt tried to pack the court. What would have happened?</p>
<p>MATTHEWS: He would have done it.</p>
<p>(CROSSTALK)</p>
<p>BIDEN: You`re darn right he would have done it. This is time for a couple people of little – as Hamilton said, a moral rectitude to stand up in the Senate and understand the institution. This is not the House of Representatives, as noble as it is.
It was intended to be a totally different institution. Theyre about to make this a parliament. Theyre about to make this the president, the prime minister. And these guys on his side act as if they work for him. They are independent equals . . .
MATTHEWS: How about the president getting involved? He`s not a member of the legislature.</p>
<p>BIDEN: Well, the president getting involved, he has a right to, but it crosses, it trenches upon the powers of separation.</p>
<p>What everybody kind of forgets is, there was a specific reason why they said, let the Senate dispose of all nominees. The president can propose. The Senate disposes. During those debates on the Constitution, there was no one single time where more than, I think, three votes for allowing the president even in on the deal. The only reason it got to the end was, this is about, look, this is not about equality.</p>
<p>This is about every state, every state having the same power as every other state. If you go by majority vote up there, what people don<code>t realize is, there are 54 Republican senators. We 46 Democrats represent more of people in America than the 54 of them. You want to do this by majority rule, popular will? That</code>s not what the Senate is about.</p>
<p>MATTHEWS: So you`re against this proposal of 100 hours?
BIDEN: Absolutely, positively.
MATTHEWS: And you answer is -- why are you against 100 hours? Isn`t that enough to debate?</p>
<p>BIDEN: I<code>m against the 100 hours because it is not enough for debate. If the Senate wants to block extreme – even if they</code>re not extreme. If 40 senators want to block anybody for nomination, they have the right to do that. And the reason they have the right to do that, it`s the one bulwark against pure majoritarianism . . .
BIDEN: In their heart, they know this is not the thing to do. This is a fundamental change in our constitutional system that exceeds the issue of judges. And it is dangerous. We are not a parliament. We were never intended to be. The states were intended to be equal. This will change that dynamic, not just for judges, but across the board.
MATTHEWS: Where is this coming from? Is it coming from the interest groups, from the Republicans in the Senate, this push to get rid of the filibuster, this -- what you call this strong effort, or is it coming from the White House?
BIDEN: I think its coming from the White House. I dont know. The honest answer is, I don`t know.</p>
<p>But I think it`s coming from, it appears, from a distance. Just the plain old politics in me says that the Faustian bargain made with the Christian right – and not all Christians are right and not all right Christians are Republicans . . .
MATTHEWS: Is this a preliminary to the fight over the Supreme Court if Rehnquist steps down?
BIDEN: Absolutely. Absolutely, positively, it is. And, again, you`re talking about, read what they are saying. Read what these guys write. I remember being on your show three years ago. And we talked about the neoconservatives on foreign policy.</p>
<p>MATTHEWS: Right.</p>
<p>BIDEN: Bright, honorable, patriotic people. And I said they<code>re talking about leveraging power. You had read what they wrote, but everybody else kind of wrote to me and said, you</code>re kidding. These guys don`t mean that.
Well, guess what? Read what the scholars on the right are writing. They want to change the Constitution.
MATTHEWS: OK, the tough question for you. When this is all over, the people will still say, not just conservatives, it seems to me that the president of the United States goes and picks a person he wants to see, an appellate court judge, a federal court judge. You guys on the Hill take it upon yourself, the right, to say, not only will we not approve him. We won`t bother doing anything with him. We will just sit on that nomination.</p>
<p>And you believe that`s the constitutional right of the United States Senate, to do that?
BIDEN: Absolutely; 24 Supreme Court justices were rejected; 14 didn`t get a vote. Hear me? Fourteen never even got a vote.</p>
<p>Guess who led the filibuster against Abe Fortas and defeated him by a filibuster? An honorable Republican named Griffin who became the minority leader from the state of Michigan. Look who stood up to Roosevelt. It was Democrats in the Senate who stood up and said, whoa.</p>
<p>This idea that the president gets, is entitled to who he wants on the court is the most bogus argument in American, modern American history. It was never, never, never intended that. The reason why the founders said the president would [propose]-- and the Senate should dispose is – was, we – all senators couldn<code>t come together on a single person. A single man can pick a single person more easily. But then it</code>s up to the senators to dispose of whether or not that person is the right person.</p>
<p>And this is just a bogus notion. And this president is not – look, 215 people he sent us, we passed through 205, and we are being obstructionists?</p>
<p>Well I guess Aludaughter - a definite political liberal who told me once she wanted to do something that “…makes a difference, not business like you Mommy.”, picked the right place. Thanks for the post.</p>
<p>I believe the intent of the founders was to allow each chamber to set its own rules - see section 5 clause 2: Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.</p>
<p>The filibuster may be tradition but it is not part of the constitution and it has mostly been used by reactionary segregationists to deny basic human rights that the vast majority of Americans wanted to see protected. Strom Thurmond holds the record - he held the floor for 34 hours and 18 minutes to block the Civil Rights Act of 1957.</p>
<p>I personally think it is unlikely that todays pampered millionaire Senators would be willing to take to the diaper to mount a real filibuster but are willing to manipulate Senate procedural rules to block nominations. I would rather see Frist bring in the cots and see if Ted Kennedy can really go a few hours without a drink. The prospect of Joe Biden and friends tying up the Senate for weeks or months trying to block a confirmation vote for some obscure appelate court appointment, all the while being compared to there great reactionary Democrat predecessors of 1964 is just too politically delicious.</p>
<p>Correct - even Strom’s bladder wasn’t that robust. It was 24 hours and 18 minutes.</p>
<p>Biden is perfect for the filiibuster, as long as he doesnt have to read from anything original.</p>
<p>Ah, never mind.</p>
<p>alumother, isn’t it adorable, how they disdain our means of earning a living? My son thinks my career is focused on entirely trivial matters and not worthy of his respect (it’s clearly for a lower IQ mind that just can’t cut it in the exalted realms). I take advantage of this by reciting key passages of documents I write, like “Enterprise Data Quality Strategy.” He runs howling from the room.</p>
<p>
As usual, Biden is talking in circles. No one is questioning that the Senate should be involved in the process. That is what the Republicans are after - giving the Senate the ability to vote a candidate up or down. </p>
<p>What is funny about this whole debate is the massive changing of sides from a few years ago. Christopher Dodd was challenged about that this week on Meet the Press when Russert quoted him from the 90’s saying that the entire concept of the filibuster should be abolished. His response: “I was wrong then.”</p>
<p>
Yulsie LOLITO (LOL In The Office…).</p>
<p>Sounds like a good document:) My son&only looked at me the other day and said “Mom. I am NOT going to be a computer scientist.” So my kid who would make a good CEO hates business and my kid who would make a good CTO won’t do comp sci. OK, they are on their own…</p>
<p>Yulsie, I’m LOLITO also. People are still staring at me.</p>
<p>Tim Russert, as I heard it at least, asked Senator Dodd to opine about his father’s position on filibustering, to which the elder Dodd had expressed opposition while also a Connecticut Senator. Chris Dodd indicated quite directly, but with a laugh, that his father was wrong. You might remember Tom Dodd as the Senator who carried a pistol onto the Senate floor with at least the inchoate intention of committing suicide, invoking echoes of ancient Rome.</p>
<p>You’re right. I guess when I heard Russert mention “Dodd”, my mind, having heard of so many other Dems who have changed postions on filibustering, assumed that Chris Dodd was just one of the many.</p>