Take Action: Nuclear Showdown Near – Preserve the Filibuster
Planned Parenthood
Senate
Republicans and Democrats are bracing themselves for a major showdown
this week that could be triggered by two controversial judges:
Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown. Deemed extreme by just
about any standard, these two nominees were too radical to be confirmed
the first time Bush nominated them. And yet they are being
considered again, and this time the Republican majority leadership has
added a dramatic twist. If moderate Senators attempt to block a
vote on either nominee again, Senate Republican leadership has
threatened to enact the nuclear option — a radical measure that would
take away the minority party's ability to block controversial nominees
like Brown and Owen.
What's at Stake?
Speculation
continues that the nuclear option may occur within the next few weeks.
Conventional wisdom suggests either Janice Rogers Brown or Priscilla
Owen will be the nominee who triggers the nuclear option.
The
so-called “nuclear option” would keep moderate senators from exercising
the only tool they have left, the filibuster, to prevent the worst of
Bush's judicial nominees from securing lifetime seats on the federal
courts.
Janice
Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen are among the most extreme of Bush's
judicial nominees and their nominations must be blocked.
During Owen's tenure on the Texas Supreme Court she wrote several
opinions that demonstrate an insensitivity – and perhaps hostility – to
the plight of a young woman who feels she cannot involve a parent in
her decision to have an abortion. In fact, Justice Owen's opinions were
so extreme that even U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was
then also a Texas Supreme Court Justice, called her position an
“unconscionable act of judicial activism.”
Janice Rogers Brown is equally unfit for a lifetime seat on the federal
bench. She also has exhibited her intention to limit young women's
fundamental right to privacy. She poses a threat to reproductive
freedom and therefore, her nomination must be rejected again.
We must also continue to remind senators that it is nominees like these
two that demonstrate the need to preserve the right of the minority to
filibuster biased, unqualified judges.
Click here to write key U.S. Senators.
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