Democratic Senators Should Block More Judges

by Stephen Crockett and Al Lawrence

OpEdNews.com

While President Clinton was in office, Republican Senators blocked around 20% of his appointments to the federal courts. George W. Bush has tried to pack the courts with the Right Wing extremists and judicial activists. The Democrats have blocked less than 2% of these judges. It is time for the rubber-stamping of Right Wing extremist judges to stop.

 

Appointments to the federal bench are lifetime positions. The Bush appointments are carrying the anti-union, anti-consumer, anti-civil liberties, anti-civil rights, anti-democracy and pro-Big Business agenda into our federal courts for their lifetimes.

 

Bush was only able to take control of the White House because of Right Wing judicial activism by Republican militants on the US Supreme Court. Republican judges are engaged in blocking vote recounts and investigations into Republican manipulations of elections nationwide. Republican judges are using their positions to thwart democratic government and public policies that benefit the powerless majority of non-wealthy Americans. Bush got less votes than Gore in 2000. He has no mandate to pack our courts with Right Wing extremist or to pursue the extreme Right Wing policy agenda that we have been pursuing since he seized office with the crucial help of Right Wing judges.

 

We cannot count on Republican judges giving us justice on issues of political corruption and abuse of office by Republican politicians. What Bush appointed judge will bring to justice Jeb Bush or Katherine Harris for stripping nearly 100,000 legal Democratic voters in Florida from the voter rolls BEFORE the 2000 election? What Republican judge will enforce the Presidential Papers Act that requires the Reagan-Bush Administration papers to be made public? Bush used an executive order to cover-up the Iran-Contra details and dealings with rogue regimes and terrorists. No executive order from a President should trump laws passed by our elected representatives. Republican judges have completely failed the public on these issues.

 

 The problems with nominations like Janice Brown are her own views, statements and judicial record. She is on record as calling FDR’s agenda as “socialism”. We need no judges with views that brand Social Security, unemployment insurance, collective bargaining rights, anti-price gouging, anti-monopoly legislation, etc. as socialism. Democratic Senators need to grow backbones and start blocking almost all Republican judges until Bush returns to the mainstream center of American politics.

Written by Stephen Crockett and Al Lawrence (hosts of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com ). Reach them by mail at:7A Planville Drive, Fayetteville, TN 37334 or phone at: 931-438-1500.