Judicial Nominations
JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS -- (Senate - April 27, 2005)
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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I come to the floor to talk about the Senate's deliberations on some of the administration's judicial nominees. It is clear this is a debate about basic American values. In drafting the Constitution, the Framers wanted the Senate to provide advice and consent on nominees who came before it to ensure that these very rights and values were protected. I believe, as a Senator, I have a responsibility to stand up for those values on behalf of my constituents in Washington State.
Many activists today are complaining that certain Senators are attacking religious or conservative values. I must argue that it is others--not Democratic Senators exercising their rights--who are pursuing a nomination strategy that attacks basic values outlined in the Constitution.
Our democracy values debate and dissension. Our democracy values the importance of checks and balances. Our democracy values an independent judiciary. But with the nuclear option and the rhetorical assault being launched at Democratic Senators by activists around the country, among others, we see those values under attack.
The nuclear option is an assault on the American people and many of the things we hold dear. It is an attempt to impose on the country, through lifetime appointments, the extreme values held by a few at the cost of the many. It is the tyranny of the majority personified. Confirming these nominees by becoming a rubber stamp for the administration would be an affront to the 200-year-old system of checks and balances, and at the same time it would be an affront to the values I promised to defend when I came to the Senate.
Building and maintaining a democracy is not easy, but our system and the rights and values it holds dear are the envy of the world. In fact, the entire world looks at us as the model for government. It is our values they want to look to. We must protect them not only for us but for those fledgling democracies.
I just returned from a bipartisan trip to Israel, Iraq, Georgia, and the Ukraine, where we saw leaders who were trying to write constitutions, trying to write laws, trying to write policies. They were all working very hard to assure even those who did not vote in the majority that they would have a voice. The challenges were varied in each country. They faced everything from protecting against terrorists to charging people for the first time for electricity, to reforming wholly corrupt institutions. Making sure that democracy survives means having debates, bringing people to the table, and making tough decisions.
In each case, the importance of not disenfranchising any group of people also rings true. So how we in this country accomplish the goal of sustaining a strong democracy and ensuring the participation of all people is very important.
Elections are the foundation of our democracy. They determine the direction of our country. But an election loss does not mean you lose your voice or you lose your place at the table. That is what we must do to keep our democracy strong. That is why we are fighting so hard to keep our voice.
Recently, we have heard a lot from the other side about attacks on faith and on values. In fact, some are trying to say our motive in this debate is somehow antifaith. I argue the opposite is true. We have faith in our values, in American values. We have faith that these values can and must be upheld. It is not an ideological battle between Republicans and Democrats. It is about keeping faith with the values and the ideals our country stands for. Having values and having faith in those values requires that we make sure those without a voice are represented.
Speaking up for those in poverty to make sure they are fed is a faith-based value. Making sure there is equal opportunity and justice for the least among us is a faith-based value. Fighting for human rights and taking care of the environment are faith-based values. To now say those of us who stick up for minority rights are antifaith is frightening and it is wrong.
I hope those who have decided to make this into a faith-antifaith debate will reconsider. This should be about democracy. It should be about the protection of an independent judiciary, and it should be about the rights of minorities.
Mr. President, our system of government, of checks and balances, and our values are under attack by this transparent grab for power. They are, with their words and potential actions, attempting to dismantle this system despite the clear intent of the Framers and the weight of history and precedent. They think they know better. I think not.
Mr. President, there is even news this morning that our friends on the other side are unwilling to come to the table to compromise to avoid this crisis. I want to take a second to praise our leader, Senator Reid, for his effort to find a reasonable conclusion before the nuclear bomb is dropped.
Unfortunately for him, for all of us on this side of the aisle, and for this institution, that plea has been rejected.
First, yesterday we saw that Karl Rove, one of the President's top advisers, said there would be no deal. Now, in this morning's papers, we read the leadership on the other side of the aisle is falling into line and saying, ``No deal.''
By rejecting the deal, Republicans are now saying that three nominees--three total nominees--are so important that they must break with the more than 200 years of tradition and 200 years of precedent. We have heard day after day on the floor--even a few moments ago--that this is the most important issue facing this body today.
Well, we have record-high gas prices and deficits, we have 45 million uninsured Americans, and we have far too many veterans without the health care they need and deserve. All the other side is talking about is doing away with the checks and balances so they can get radicals on the bench.
If the other side wants to continue on this destructive course and ignore those real needs of the American people, they can. But this Senator and my colleagues will continue to fight this abuse of power and do the work the people sent us here to do.
It is a sad day when one side refuses to come to the table to negotiate a way out of this impasse. It is even sadder that they refuse to accept our excellent confirmation record in blind pursuit of confirming the most radical of their choices.
Although we have been able to confirm 205 nominees that President Bush sent forward, there are a few that are far outside some basic values.
Let's start close to home with President Bush's nominee to the Ninth Circuit Court. To that court, which overseas appeals from my home State of Washington and five other States, President Bush has nominated William Myers. Mr. Myers is a lifelong lobbyist and anti-environmental activist. He is opposed by over 175 environmental, labor, civil, and women's disability rights organizations. He even drew opposition from Native American organizations and from the National Wildlife Federation. This is a man who has never tried a jury case, who has an anti-environmental record stretching back to his days as a Bush Interior Department official and industry lobbyist. He even received the lowest possible rating from the ABA.
Mr. President, in the Pacific Northwest and in regions around this great country, we hold our environmental values dear. I am not willing to hand a lifetime appointment to such a vehement advocate against the people's interests. This is the perfect example of the check our Framers had in mind when they drafted our Constitution. We can, and we must, use it.
That is just one example of a nominee looking to attack basic values. Bill Pryor, a nominee to the Eleventh Circuit, opposes basic individual liberties and freedoms. He called Roe v. Wade the ``worst abomination of constitutional law in history.''
Janice Rogers Brown, nominated to the DC Circuit Court, called 1937--that was the year this Government enacted many of the New Deal's programs to help lift our country out of the deep depression--``the triumph of our own socialist revolution.'' Mr. President, her disdain for worker and consumer protection values and principles is clear in decision after decision.
Nominee Priscilla Owen's narrow constitutional view was so far outside the mainstream that then-Texas Supreme Court Judge and now Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that to accept it would be ``an unconscionable act of judicial activism.''
Mr. President, time and time again, these nominees have sided against the American people and the values we hold dear. They have taken extreme positions that run counter to mainstream values. Not one of these nominees has the experience or the temperament to administer justice in an impartial way to the citizens that they would serve.
Today it is fashionable for some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to disparage what they call activist judges. But this power grab reveals their true motivation. They want activists on the bench to interpret the law in a way that undermines important American values. We will not let them.
We have a responsibility to stand up and say no to these extreme nominees. But to know that, you don't need to listen to me; just look back at the great Founders of our democracy.
The Framers, in those amazing years when our country was founded, took great care in creating our new democracy. They wrote into the Constitution the Senate's role in the nomination process. They wrote and they spoke about protecting the minority against the tyranny of the majority. Their words ring true today.
James Madison, in his famous Federalist No. 10, warned against the superior force of an overbearing majority or, as he called it, a ``dangerous vice.'' He said:
The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice.
Years prior, John Adams wrote, in 1776, on the specific need for an independent judiciary and checks and balances. He said:
The dignity and stability of government in all its branches, the morals of the people and every blessing of society, depends so much upon an upright and skillful administration of justice, that the judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checked upon that. The judges, therefore, should always be men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man or body of men.
Mr. President, I shudder at the thought of what these great thinkers and Founders of our democracy would say to this attempted abuse of power in the Senate. I think one of the best interpretations of those thoughts was offered to this body by Robert Caro, the great Senate historian, in a letter in 2003. He talked about the need for the Senate to maintain its history and traditions, despite popular pressures of the day, and of the important role debate and dissension plays in any discussion of judicial nominees. In particular, he wrote of his concern for the preservation of Senate tradition in the face of attempted changes by a majority run wild.
In part, he said:
In short, two centuries of history rebut any suggestion that either the language or intent of the Constitution prohibits or counsels against the use of extended debate to resist Presidential authority. To the contrary, the Nation's Founders depended on the Senate's members to stand up to a popular and powerful President. In the case of judicial appointments, the Founders specifically mandated the Senate to play an active role providing both advice and consent to the President. That shared authority was basic to the balance of powers among the branches.
I am ..... attempting to say as strongly as I can that in considering any modification, Senators should realize that they are not dealing with the particular dispute of the moment, but with the fundamental character of the Senate of the United States, and with the deeper issue of the balance of power between majority and minority rights.
Mr. President, protection of minority rights has been a fundamental principle since the infancy of this democracy. It should not--in fact, it cannot--be laid to rest here in this Chamber.
I know many people are out there wondering why we are spending so much time talking about Senate rules and judicial nominations. They are wondering why I am talking about nominees and being on the floor quoting Madison and Adams. They are wondering what this means to them.
Let me make it clear. This debate is about whether we want a clean, healthy environment and the ability to enforce laws to protect it fairly. This debate is about whether we want to protect essential rights and liberties. This debate is about whether we want free and open Government. This debate is about preserving equal protection under the law. This debate is about whether we want to preserve the independent judiciary, whether we want to defend our Constitution, and whether we want to stand up for the values of the American public.
Mr. President, these values are too precious to be abdicated. Trusting in them, we will not let the Republicans trample our rights and those of millions of Americans we are here to represent. We will stand and say, yes, to democracy; yes, to an independent judiciary; yes, to minority rights; and, no, to this unbelievable abuse of power.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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