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Edited on Thu Jun-23-05 08:46 AM by spooky3
As you know, he was one of the 14 "compromise" Senators. Too bad he soured me a bit in my support of the effort to avoid the "nuclear" option with parts of this reply.
* * *
Subject: Correspondence from Senator Warner
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 08:58:54 -0400
June 23, 2005
Dear ***:
Thank you for contacting me to express your views about judicial
nominations, the filibuster, and the so-called "nuclear" or
"constitutional" option. I appreciate you making this effort and
offering
me the opportunity to give you my perspective on these important
issues.
Article II, Section 2, of the United States Constitution provides that
the President "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent
of
the Senate, shall appoint . . . Judges of the supreme Court, and all
other
Officers of the United States . . . ." Thus, pursuant to the
Constitution, both the President and the United States Senate play a
role
in the judicial nominations process.
In over a quarter of a century of serving the citizens of the
Commonwealth of Virginia in the Senate, I have taken my constitutional
responsibilities of providing advice and consent very seriously. In
considering a nominee, I look at many factors: character, professional
career, experience, integrity, and temperament for lifetime service on
our
courts are all important. The opinions of the officials from the state
in
which the nominee would serve and the views of my fellow Virginians are
also relevant. In addition, I consider whether the nominee is likely
to
interpret the law according to legislative intent and precedent, as all
judges should, or whether he or she will improperly impose his or own
views from the bench as a judicial activist.
Considering these many factors, I believe that President Bush has
nominated many well qualified nominees to serve on the bench. While
the
overwhelming majority of these nominees have been confirmed by the
Senate,
unfortunately, starting in 2003, some Senators in the last Congress
resorted to using a rare procedural maneuver known as the filibuster to
prevent the full Senate from having up-or-down votes on certain
nominees.
The filibuster is a Senate procedure defined as an extreme dilatory
tactic used to obstruct or prevent action. Under Senate rules, a
filibuster can only be defeated if at least sixty Senators vote in
support
of a motion to invoke cloture - a motion to defeat the filibuster and
end
debate.
In my view, systematic party-led filibusters of judicial nominees are
wrong. I generally believe that nominees who enjoy the support of the
majority of Senators ought to receive up-or-down votes. Accordingly,
in
the last Congress, I participated in an all-night Senate session to try
to
break the judicial filibuster within the framework of our existing
rules.
Regrettably, our effort was not successful.
Since then, it has been suggested that Senators should employ a
mechanism
commonly referred to as the "nuclear" or "constitutional" option in an
effort to ensure that all judicial nominees receive up-or-down votes.
Under this proposal, the Senate essentially would change its rules to
ensure that judicial nominees could not be filibustered. While rule
changes in the Senate usually require the concurrence of at least 67
Senators, this option would only require a simple majority vote.
As supporters of the "nuclear" or "constitutional" option considered
utilizing this extraordinary procedure, I intentionally withheld
expressing how I would vote on it in order to encourage the Republican
and
Democratic leaders to come to a mutually acceptable solution for the
consideration of judicial nominations. However, once it became clear
that
the Senate leadership would not be able to reach such an accord, I then
worked with a bipartisan group of thirteen other Senators to craft such
a
solution. In my view, bipartisan consensus was necessary to break the
impasse on judicial nominations in a way that paid respect to the
Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision of the United States
Senate.
Under our agreement, signatories committed that future judicial
nominees
will only be filibustered in extraordinary circumstances. I take this
to
mean that the kind of systematic party-led filibusters we saw again and
again in the last Congress will no longer occur in the current 109th
Congress. In return for this commitment, Senators who signed the
agreement also committed not to support the so-called "nuclear" or
"constitutional" option so long as filibusters on judicial nominations
only occur in extraordinary circumstances.
In my view, our Constitution and the history, traditions, and rules of
the Senate are very clear: while nothing explicitly guarantees
judicial
nominees an up-or-down vote in the Senate, the use of the filibuster in
an
attempt to prevent such votes has historically been very rare. Our
agreement pays respect to these facts, and if the spirit of the
agreement
holds, the vast majority of judicial nominees will receive up-or-down
votes while future judicial filibusters will once again be very rare.
Finally, while some have claimed that the "nuclear" or
"constitutional"
option, if successful, would have guaranteed an up-or-down vote for
every
single judicial nominee, this is simply not the case. While such an
option would have, if successful, eliminated filibusters on judicial
nominations, the fact of the matter is that throughout history Senators
have used a variety procedural tactics other than the filibuster to
prevent the full Senate from considering certain judicial nominees. In
fact, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service,
since
1945 approximately 200 judicial nominations have not received
up-or-down
votes in the United States Senate. These other procedural tactics
would
have remained untouched by the "nuclear" or "constitutional" option.
In my view, the agreement on judicial nominations reached by 14
Senators
will do far more to ensure that a large number of judicial nominees
receive an up-or-down vote all the while paying respect to the
Constitution and to the history, traditions, and rules of the Senate.
While it is not a perfect agreement by any means, it is one based on
mutual trust, respect and good-faith.
Again, thank you for contacting me.
Sincerely,
John W. Warner
United States Senator
JWW/lsm
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