WP,pg1:For Liberals, High Stakes at High Ct.:Another Defeat Could Tarnish

[DeepModem Mom]

For Liberals, High Stakes at High Court
Another Defeat Could Tarnish Credibility as Advocacy Force

By Thomas B. Edsall and Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 11, 2005; Page A01


Ralph G. Neas, president of the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way, began the George W. Bush years leading the fight against the president's 2001 tax cut. He lost.

Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, has been a leading voice in opposition to provisions in the USA Patriot Act that he and other civil rights leaders say needlessly restrict civil liberties. So far, the act is unchanged.

Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, has joined coalitions that have opposed what she saw as pro-business proposals to make it more difficult for consumers to file for bankruptcy and to limit plaintiffs' options in class-action lawsuits. Those measures were passed into law earlier this year.

These liberal lobbyists are a triumvirate now leading the left into what they view as their biggest battle yet: to stop conservatives from replacing retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor with a justice firmly aligned with the right. After failing repeatedly in recent years to stop the advance of a conservative agenda by the Republican-controlled White House and Congress, a once-powerful liberal coalition is making what amounts to a last stand over control of the Supreme Court.

If the Coalition for a Fair and Independent Judiciary the lobbyists head is unsuccessful, it will risk not only seeing the courts tilt decidedly more conservative but also seeing the liberal movement lose further credibility as an organizing and advocacy force in Washington. "The stakes are enormous -- they could not be any higher for us," Aron said. "Progressive organizations throughout the country understand how much is at stake with a change on the Supreme Court."...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/10/AR2005071000923.html

[stevedeshazer]

1. Complete Republican bullcrap

:crazy:

I feel dumber after having read it.

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"The court is their last bastion," said James Bopp Jr., general counsel to the James Madison Center for Free Speech and the attorney for conservative groups in many high-visibility cases. "That's why the left is so frantic. They can't win democratic elections, they cannot get their agenda through democratic means, so what they are left with is judicial tyranny as a means to get their agenda, and they have been pretty successful."

[Voltaire99]

2. "Tarnish credibility"?!?

Lest we forget, here again comes the establishment to remind us: when its goons who have stolen elections force its people and policies upon us, we lose credibility.

Hardly. Far from liberals, of whom remain few, it is spineless center-right Democratic pols who have no credibility. They, and not the activists, are the ones who readily capitulate rather than fight the right wing.

Yet this is a mushy Democratic pol's worst nightmare: two, and soon possibly three, vacant Court seats. Too hard to cut a mealy-mouthed deal with Repuglicans and then spin their way out of this one!

So let me say it again: fight, you worms. F i g h t!

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Well said, Voltaire. nt

[aquart]

3. They better hope we prevail.

If law and justice are only for rich Republicans...well, eventually people get testy.

The more terrified they become, the worse their legislation and decisions, the closer they get to seeing their worst nightmares.

[wallwriter]

5. This is indeed bulls***

What's really happening is that the Senate Democrats are united, and they are also attracting moderates of the Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and even Chuck Hagel vein. Meanwhile, it's the Republicans who are balkanizing, because apparently even a torture-loving, bribe taking fascist (Gonzalez) isn't far right enough for their take-no-prisoners lunatic fringe.

Message: the Dems are holding together, the Repukes are falling apart.

I blow my nose in this article.

[Toots]

6. None of these people are Congressmen

They did not lose the battle. Democrats in Congress lost the battles described and apparently will lose this one as well. As long as we continue to rely on Democrats that vote against Democratic Principles we will lose. Zell Miller, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Joe Leiberman. these are the ones that lost those issues not the Coalitions that fed them the information. You want DLCers in Congress then you want Republican Policy. Plain and Simple.