Shelby then... Shelby now...
Sen. Richard Shelby, (R-AL) has put a personal hold on 70 of President Obama's nominees. It appears he is concerned Mobile, Alabama isn't
getting a defense contract soon enough. But, honesty and consistency doesn't seem to be his strong suit.
In 2005, with a Republican President and Senate Majority:"As a U.S. Senator, I believe that the review of judicial nominations is one of the most important responsibilities of the Senate, and I firmly believe that each of the President's nominees should be afforded a straight up-or-down vote. I do not think that any of us want to operate in an environment where federal judicial nominees must receive 60 votes in order to be confirmed. To that end I firmly support changing the Senate rules to require that a simple majority be necessary to confirm all judicial nominees, thus ending the continuous filibuster of them."Yesterday, with a Democratic President and Senate Majority:"Sen. Shelby has placed holds on several pending nominees due to unaddressed national security concerns," Shelby spokesperson Jonathan Graffeo said in a statement. "Among his concerns" are the progress on multi-billion dollar defense contract that would see planes built in Mobile, AL and Obama's decision to scrap a $45 million FBI improvised explosive device lab Shelby secured an earmark for in 2008. The Obama Administration wants to read terrorists our Miranda rights and try them in U.S. courts but is impeding the processing of evidence that could lead to convictions," he said. "If this administration were as worried about hunting down terrorists as it is about the confirmation of low-level political nominations, America would be a safer place."TPMh/t to Turnow for pointing The Whirlpool to this story.
Labels: Hypocracy, hypocrites, Republicans, Sen. Shelby, U.S. Senate
Sen. Max Baucus earns his healthcare industry contributions
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
On “The Ed Show” Monday night I said Montana Sen. Max Baucus had to decide whether he represented Montana or the insurance industry. Tuesday he made his choice, voting against both public option amendments to the health care reform bill in the Senate Finance Committee.
All the Democrats who voted against the public option should be ashamed, but Baucus most of all. The Senate Finance Committee chair’s reasoning was bizarre. According to Salon’s Mike Madden, whose coverage today was terrific, Baucus admitted “the public option would help hold insurance companies' feet to the fire,” then added, “But my first job is to get this bill across the finish line."
No, Sen. Baucus. Your first job is voting for what will work to extend health care to more Americans and reduce costs. (And Harry Reid, you might want to have a little talk with your boy from Montana, since it’s my understanding the Senate Majority Leader is in charge of getting the bill across the finish line.)
So let’s get this straight: Baucus admits the public option would “hold insurance companies’ feet to the fire,” but he voted against it? Is there any clearer evidence that Baucus is in the pocket of the health insurance industry? Between 2003 and 2008, according to the Washington Post, Baucus took $3 million from the health and insurance sectors, 20 percent of his total contributions. And he collected half of that money in just the last two years, as the committee he chaired began holding hearings on health care reform.More...Labels: Democrats, Healthcare, Sen. Baucus, U.S. Senate
Sotomayor confirmed: The Party of "NO!" is predictable
The United States Senate
voted to confirm Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the United State Supreme Court.
Senator John McCain joined 30 other Republican Senators to vote against the first Hispanic Justice.
NAYs ---31
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bennett (R-UT)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)*
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)
* Supposedly, this is the first time John McCain has voted against a Supreme Court nominee... for any President.
Labels: John McCain, Republicans, SCOTUS, Sotomayor, U.S. Senate
Abolish the U.S. Senate
Isn’t time we got rid of that eighteenth century anachronism, the United States Senate?
Supposedly, we Americans believe in the idea of democracy but of course the country is not, strictly speaking, a democracy and the senate is a decidedly anti-democratic institution
designed, the cultural critic Richard N. Rosenfeld wrote several years ago, “to prevent the unfettered expression of the people’s will. In fact, the founders of this country were decidedly hostile to democracy and the constitution “was meant to prevent democracy in America” and the senate has always fostered a politics of minority rule “in which our leaders must necessarily pursue their unpopular aims by means of increasingly desperate stratagems of deceit and persuasion.”
Our congressional and executive branches reflect the British system after which they were modeled. The British parliamentary system recognized “the king, Britain’s largest property owner, the hereditary House of Lords (Anglican bishops and titled aristocrats, . . . and a House of Commons (which represented a rising mercantile class of property owners who demands for representation gave rise to” the Glorious Revolution. In our system, the president represents the rule by one (monarchy), the senate represents rule by the few (aristocracy), and the house, the most democratic branch, rule by the many (democracy). The Roman philosopher Polybius, who laid out this division of government, “insisted that each of these forms, unless balanced by the other two, would degenerate into tyranny, oligarchy, or mob rule, respectively.
In Common Sense, Thomas Paine “urged that any American government consist of only one democratically elected legislative chamber, with no aristocratic or kingly branch to veto its decisions.” And in fact, the first government of the United States, the Articles of Confederation adopted just such a system. Unfortunately, the Congress gave each state in the Confederation only one vote in Congress rather than apportion votes by state population. Benjamin Franklin too argued for a one-house legislature which he “likened to ‘putting one horse before a cart and the other behind it, and whipping them both. When the ruling class decided that the Confederation no longer met their interests, they dissolved the Articles of Confederation and replaced them with the Constitution with its rule of one (the president), few (the senate), and many (the House). For Paine and Franklin, wrote Rosenfeld, “two legislative chambers were a prescription for deadlock, and, with the advantage of hindsight, who among us would disagree?”
In the United States today, “U. S. senators from the twenty-six smallest states, representing a mere 18 percent of the nation’s population, hold a majority in the” Senate, and therefore, under the Constitution, regardless of what the President, the House, “or even an overwhelming majority of the” citizens want, “nothing becomes law if those senators object.” “The nine largest states, containing a majority of the American people, are represented by only 18 of the 100 senators in the senate.” Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, New Hampshire, and several other states have only 600,000 or so residents. Each of those states has two senators. California, with 33 million residents, or Washington with 6 million residents each has two senators. Why is it that the 600,000 residents of Alaska have equal votes in the senate as the 33 million residents in California?
Because, as Rosenfeld wrote, the U.S. Constitution was deliberately designed to prevent the unfettered expression of the people’s will.
It’s time to get rid of the senate and institute a one-house, unicameral legislature in the United States.
Labels: U.S. Senate, unicameral legislature
