The United States Senate Judiciary Committee just voted along party lines, 12-7, to send the nomination of liberal activist Judge Louis B. Butler Jr. to the floor of the Senate. The Democrats did so, according to friends inside the room, in a disrespectful manner… talking over Republicans who wished to voice their disapproval and tried to – heaven forbid in the U.S. Senate – actually debate the nominee. I am told Schumer and Whitehouse were on their cell phones, and a number of Democrat Senators were talking loudly during the limited debate they even allowed.

Classy.

This is the latest of an increasingly distinguished line of completely-out-of-the-mainstream, leftists who have absolutely no respect for, much less use for, the Constitution. If it weren’t so damaging to our nation’s well being, it would almost be comical how uniquely unqualified and crazy these nominees are.

Following on the heels of the nomination of admitted leftist and activist Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, someone who was overturned repeatedly, who believes judges make law, who holds sexist views and who has decided cases based on race… and then, David Hamilton, who was nominated for the 7th Circuit – someone who raised money for ACORN, who worked for ACLU, who blocked parental consent laws and who was soft on the worst of our criminals… NOW comes Louis Butler, Jr. for a Federal District Court slot in the Western District of Wisconsin… a nominee with a long track record of liberalism and activism (see Ed Whelan’s piece over at NR here).

Judge Butler was rejected by voters not once, but TWICE, for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. WISCONSIN. Butler, like Sotomayor, believes judges should base their decisions not on the law, but on their personal beliefs and policy preferences, having said, “…the background, personal beliefs and policy decisions of the justices selected will influence how they vote on the difficult cases before them… And that is the main reason I support Senator Obama.”

In his brief tenure on the Supreme Court (he was appointed by a Democrat Governor given his inability to get elected… again, in WISCONSIN), Butler distinguished himself by overturning the will of the people when he voted to strike down medical liability limits – and he earned the nickname “Loophole Louis” for his noted soft-on-crime stances, as documented in this Wall Street Journal editorial.

It is indeed a new day in America, and “change” is in the air. That change will be most notable in an Obama-planted activist judiciary ripping away what little grip the American people still have on this little democratic experiment. Nice work.

Today, Dana Milbank has an article up on the Washington Post’s Washington Sketch blog where he basically skewers a number of Senate Republicans for employing the filibuster against President Obama’s Lefty fringe judicial picks.

The story goes something like this; given the GOP’s attempt (the so-called “Nuclear Option”) to end the filibuster for Presidential nominations during the leadership of the hapless Frist, certain GOP Senators, like Alabama’s Jeff Sessions and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell are being hypocritical by voting against cloture on President Obama’s nomination of the Left-Wing extremist and disciple of result-oriented jurisprudence that is David Hamilton to 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Of course, this is using that special self-serving Leftard definition of hypocrisy that seeks to apply standards to others that they would never apply to themselves.

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Senator Jeff Sessions, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is encouraging Republican colleagues to filibuster Barack Obama’s nominee to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, David Hamilton.

Hamilton has major issues against him, including stating publicly his believe that the founders intended the judiciary to routinely amend the constitution through case law. More troubling, David Hamilton has ruled that praying to Allah does not violate the Establishment of Religion clause in the First Amendment, but praying in Jesus Christ’s name does.

According to Sesions’s letter,

Judge Hamilton’s most determidly activists decisions might be his series of rulings in A Woman’s Choice v. Newman, 904 F. Supp. 1434 (S.D. Ind. 1995). Through his rulings in this case, Judge Hamilton succeeded in blocking the enforcement of an Indiana informed consent law for 7 years. In reversing, the Seventh Circuit noted that Judge Hamilton had abused his judicial discretion.

Sessions concludes, “[t]his is not the type of service that should be rewarded with a promotion. In deed, this is one of those extraordinary circumstances where the President should be informed that his nominee is not qualified.”

You can read the full letter here (PDF).

Likewise, you can call your Senator at 202-224-3121 and ask him to oppose Judge David Hamilton’s nomination to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Senate confirmation hearing, committee vote and floor vote have come and gone. Judge Sotomayor is now a member of the United States Supreme Court. May God bless her, guide her and grant her restraint in her rulings.

That said, it is difficult to be optimistic. Justice Sotomayor has expressly, and flippantly, embraced the idea that judges do, and seemingly should, make law. She puts race and sex above reason. And, she was nominated by a President more concerned about empathy than judgment.

Her nomination was an important one – even as conservatives, including a few Republicans, have been fighting a war on multiple fronts, from health care to economics, national defense to abortion, and much more. But the composition of the Supreme Court has as much or more effect – especially in the long run – on our ability to live free from the strong arm of government as any of the branches or levels of our federal (that is, national, state and local) system… which should tell you all you need to know about the state of things.

Justice Sotomayor’s confirmation also raised the issue of the current courtship of the Hispanic population by both democrats and republicans. The media and many democrats will try to make this an anti-Hispanic vote – and indeed, already are trying to do so. So, it was incumbent upon Republicans, at this critical moment in history, to make the case against Sotomayor based on her views, not her race, and to, perhaps more importantly, begin to establish a clear standard for all future nominees.

How did they do? On the whole, they fared much better than expected (partly because we expect so little), but not as good as they should have. Overall Grade: C+.

The Great: A+… Candidate Marco Rubio, and, surprisingly, John McCain.
The Good: B… Mitch McConnell, Jeff Sessions, Jon Kyl, John Cornyn and a few others
The Bad: C… That same leadership did not extend to a Republican Conference-wide, all-hands-on-deck effort to make the case loudly and clearly
The Ugly: F… Race and the National Rifle Association.
The Pathetic: No grade warranted… Lamar Alexander, Lindsey Graham and the other Republicans who discarded principle to vote to confirm

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In the coming days, the Senate will debate the nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, culminating in a vote later this week. It appears that a majority of Republicans will oppose her nomination, but in doing so, they must have a consistent message explaining why. Interestingly, they need look no further than John McCain.

Yesterday, in announcing his intention to vote against the confirmation of Judge Sotomayor, the Senator outlined - as clearly and succinctly as anyone has - the conservative rationale for opposing her. His entire statement can be found here, but it is summed up nicely in his closing paragraph:

“Judicial activism demonstrates a lack of respect for the popular will that is at fundamental odds with our republican system of government. And, as I stated earlier, regardless of one’s success in academics and in government service, an individual who does not appreciate the common sense limitations on judicial power in our democratic system of government ultimately lacks a key qualification for a lifetime appointment to the bench. For this reason, and no other, I am unable to support Judge Sotomayor’s nomination.”

THAT is the argument. Her openly activist views do, in fact, disqualify her for the Court. It is not, as some have wrongly stated, enough that she is “qualified” in the academic sense. And it is critical that Republicans echo these sentiments loudly and clearly - because doing so will both beat back false accusations of anti-hispanic bias, and begin to clarify the Republican threshold for Judicial nominees.

It is also critical that the remaining uncommitted Republicans stay on the team. Currently, 27 Republicans are committed no-votes. 6 Republicans (Alexander, Collins, Graham, Lugar, Martinez, and Snowe) have already displayed their disrespect for the Constitution by announcing their support for Judge Sotomayor. That leaves 7 uncommitted members. They are: Barasso, Bond, Ensign, Enzi, Gregg, Murkowski, and Voinovich.

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Next week, the U.S. Senate will vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. We know this will happen – and it is, as her supporters like to remind us, expressly because elections do have consequences. Democrats have 60 Senators and the President is a Democrat.

But how Republicans handle the vote is critically important – both with respect to their ability to unify behind a coherent set of guiding principles, and because failure to express clear opposition to Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy will leave open the door for those who oppose her to be labeled racist and anti-hispanic.

Just as Senate Republican leadership was beginning to come together to make the case – behind the efforts of Sens. McConnell, Sessions, Kyl, Cornyn and others – along comes Lamar Alexander. The third-ranking Senate Republican this morning joined John McCain’s lap-dog (Lindsey Graham, if you had to ask…) to stick a knife in the back of Republicans, the Constitution and Conservatism by announcing his support for the nominee.

The man in charge of the Senate Republican Conference message – yeah, that’s right – is absolutely killing the message… a message that should resonate with many Americans… that Judges cannot make the law, that race should not inform an impartial judiciary and that the Constitution must be respected and followed.

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Several years ago in a Senate Judiciary Committee Mark-Up, in a very different time, Sen. Lindsey Graham made a wise-crack to his Democrat colleagues along the lines of “well, one day, when Democrats get back in power… I mean, not in my lifetime… (laughter).”

Well, it didn’t take long, Senator. Here we are. And in a moment of clarity - you remind us, yet again - of the cancer in the Republican Party that is responsible to bringing us from 55 members to 40 in a little over two years. You are a pathetic excuse for a Senator… Incapable of maintaining an ounce of principle in your decisions - and giving up the game that your motives are entirely political.

You needn’t reach any question beyond that of whether Judge Sotomayor would be an activist judge. While she (unconvincingly) tried to sound like Justice Scalia at her confirmation hearing, when the spotlight was not on her in years past, she, by her own arrogant comments, mocked the idea that Courts should not make law. Everything else is academic.

A vote for Judge Sotomayor is a vote against the Constitution and against conservatism.

Senator Graham, you have made your position crystal clear.

NOTE: It should be noted how bad Graham’s vote truly is in light of the fact two old bulls, Senators Grassley and Hatch, in particular, found it necessary to vote against the President’s nominee. Mike gamecock Devine has posted on this topic here and throughout his diary.

The Confirmation Hearing for Judge Sotomayor has begun in the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. We will hear a series of opening statements - and then, likely, a couple of days of questions for the aspiring Supreme Court Justice.

This is a real test. But the test is not for Ms. Sotomayor. The test is for Republicans.

In the 1990’s, President Clinton had two opportunities during his tenure to replace Supreme Court Justices - and his picks were the obviously liberal and activist judges, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. These two Justices received precisely 3 and 9 Republican “no” votes, respectively. That was pathetic, given the extent to which Republicans then knew full well that each of these Justices would often times ignore their role to interpret the law in order to seek an outcome based on some other rationale… say, “empathy,” or what is “in their hearts.”

Today and in the coming days, Republicans can choose how to approach the confirmation question of Judge Sotomayor and their decision will say a lot about whether the Republican Party, as a whole, has any fight left in it…

There is no good reason to for any Republican - or any Senator who values the Constitution and the role of judges to, in the words of Chief Justice John Roberts, “call balls and strikes” as an umpire - to vote to confirm Judge Sotomayor given her very public pronouncements on the role of activists judges and her quite apparent penchant for ruling on issues of race with a personal or policy purpose in mind rather than basing her decision on the law and believing her race and sex make her a better judge.

The world is watching, yes. But, conservatives who believe the Republican Party has lost its way in recent years are watching this hearing particularly closely… to see whether Republicans are on the right road - whether they have an ounce of core beliefs that can serve to provide backbone and a will to fight.

This is an easy test. Let’s see if they pass it.

In preparation for the upcoming Senate confirmation debate, supporters of Judge Sonia Sotomayor are stooping to a new low… According to McClatchy Newspapers, they are going after the Connecticut firefighter at the center of one of the nominee’s most controversial rulings - the one recently overturned by the United States Supreme Court in Ricci v. DeStefano.

This is not unusual. It is the M-O of liberals… they’re all for the “little guy” as a political poster-child, but they simply don’t bat an eye at running over him if it’s necessary to accomplish their agenda.

Mr. Ricci, whatever his past may reveal, is a private citizen who had his day in court… but not just any court, he had his day in the United States Supreme Court, and he won. And now liberal special interest groups want to go after HIM - personally - simply because Judge Sotomayor wrote a lousy opinion with her colleagues and now is getting repudiated for its foolishness.

Republicans should object strongly to these types of personal attacks… and so should Judge Sotomayor.

Below are the last four pre-hearing “daily” questions offered by Senator Cornyn. These, and all those offered to date, are critically important questions for someone seeking confirmation to the United States Supreme Court. She should answer them.

Next week, we will find out if she will.

July 10, 2009: What is Judge Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy?
July 9, 2009: What is the proper role of judges in defining marriage and the family?
July 8, 2009: What limits does the First Amendment impose on campaign finance regulation?
July 7, 2009: Should constitutional interpretation resemble common law decision-making?

To view all twenty questions posed by the Senator, click here.

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Senator Cornyn continues to put out a question of the day for Judge Sotomayor in anticipation of the hearing to begin next week. The following question was put out yesterday - my apologies for the late posting - but it is particularly important given recent judicial interference with punishments chosen by the people through the democratic process… for example, overturning the death penalty for child rapists.

Sen. Cornyn’s Daily Question for Judge Sotomayor
Question 16: Monday, July 6, 2009

Should the Constitution be interpreted to allow the death penalty, and if so, under what limitations?

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Today, Senator Cornyn asks the question of Judge Sotomayor to which an increasing number of Americans seem to be interested in knowing the answer… what with her recent slap-down by the Supreme Court and her past comments on the issue of race.

What say you, Judge Sotomayor?

Sen. Cornyn’s Daily Question for Judge Sotomayor
Question 15: Thursday, July 2, 2009

Is the Constitution color-blind?

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Just when you thought the unprecedented adoration of President Obama and the current Democrats in Congress by the “fiercely independent,” and self-promoted “fourth branch” of government known as the media could not get any worse… along comes Politico.

In what can only be described as a hit piece on a good man - Politico trots out in the opening paragraph of its “introduction piece” on Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions… GUESS what? Go ahead… GUESS… Yep, that he’s racist. Hard to believe, huh?

Let me tell you something. I know Jeff Sessions. I know his staff. I know his family. I have seen him working up close and personally. And he is a decent, honorable, good man - a man of integrity who has raised a wonderful family and devoted his life to public service. And he deserves far better than this kind of cheap shot from an irresponsible, dim-witted and second-rate news publication.

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A Roll Call story by John Stanton just posted that references our conversation here regarding the importance of Jeff Sessions being Judiciary Committee Republican Ranking Member instead of Chuck Grassley or Orrin Hatch. The most significant paragraphs are below:

The conservative blog redstate.com and other activists and media outlets already have started pushing back against Grassley. They are organizing call-ins to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) office, urging him to block his ascension on the panel. Redstate.com urges readers to register their opposition to the Grassley plan, arguing that “to have Orrin Hatch or Chuck Grassley at the helm would be an unmitigated disaster. Each are cut from the same cloth — that of the old guard Republicans in the Senate who have given us the train wreck that the Party has become.”

A GOP leadership aide, however, said there is little that McConnell can do at this point, and the Minority Leader is almost certain to avoid choosing sides in the brewing dispute. But the source said that if Grassley can persuade enough Members to back him, the Conference rules allow for it.

That may be technically true under the rules - but this is precisely the problem. Leaders - real leaders - recognize the goal and do what they need to do to attain it. That is what Mitch McConnell needs to do. Lead, dang it. Jeff Sessions is a capable, smart, conservative lawyer - and is the right man to lead the Committee right now. Chuck Grassley is not the guy to do it - and the old Senate guard “seniority” structure shouldn’t be the deciding factor on how to proceed.

Full text of the article follows and a reminder that Mitch McConnell’s phone number is 202-224-3121 (call your Senator, too, if he’s Republican).

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According to NPR, and other sources I am told, Justice Souter will retire at the end of the Court’s current term. He will remain on the Court until he is replaced.

Much more to follow on this topic - but let’s start with this… Jeff Sessions should be Republican Ranking Member on the Judiciary Committee. Not Orrin Hatch. Not Chuck Grassley.

UPDATE 2: In response to the below update regarding the Judiciary Commitee, a few folks have asked what they can do. Here you go:

1. Call Mitch McConnell at 202-224-3121.
2. Tell him that you understand there is some debate about who should be the Republican Ranking Member on Judiciary, and that you believe that person should be Jeff Sessions because:
- Sessions is next in line, is an accomplished lawyer and is a proven conservative.
- Chuck Grassley is neither a lawyer nor the right man for the job.
- Orrin Hatch has had his day.
3. Tell him also that this is a time to revisit the seniority system anyway - it is antiquated and perpetuates Washington largesse and stagnation as the same old dudes just shuffle around from committee to committee (e.g. Grassley going from Finance to Judiciary).

UPDATE: As reports have indicated, Senator Grassley is interested in the job of Judiciary Ranking Member but wants to keep his title as Finance Ranking Member AND be guaranteed the Judiciary spot in two years when he is “termed out” of Finance. To get his way, he’s enlisted the support of former Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch - trying to cut a deal to get Hatch as ranking member for the remainder of this Congress until Grassley could take over in 2011 (which would require a waiver by the Republican Conference because Hatch is term limited on Judiciary).

To have Orrin Hatch or Chuck Grassley at the helm would be an unmitigated disaster. Each are cut from the same cloth - that of the old guard Republicans in the Senate who have given us the train wreck that the Party has become. They would hire terrible staffers who would neither be the smartest lawyers nor actually conservative - and, potentially, maintain a significant number of Specter’s former staff.

Jeff Sessions, on the other hand, would field a talented team who could educate America on just who America is getting in the next Supreme Court justice . Barring something very odd and unexpected, the nominee will get confirmed. Therefore, our number one goal should be to make sure America knows who this person is and what he stands for - and you need the right people in place to make that happen.

Virtually everyone agrees that Arlen Specter left the Republican Party in a completely selfish, hypocritical and unprincipled effort to save his own political hide in the face of opposition from a principled conservative who has a proven ability to win votes in Pennsylvania. The only question seems to be, why did this happen?

Some want to blame Toomey, the Club for Growth, Jim DeMint and others who have advocated a return to fundamental conservative principles by Republicans. Erick counters that well (or see below). But for those of us who really know how things work in the Senate, the answer is much more simple: Arlen Specter turned his guns on his own “friends” a few times too often…

Arlen Specter has long been a thorn in the side of Senate Republicans – and many of his antics are well known, be it voting against the confirmations of eventual colleague Jeff Sessions (for District Judge) and Robert Bork (Supreme Court), or his odd invocation of Scottish law in his vote of “not proved” during the Clinton impeachment trial. Still more people will point to his recent vote on the so-called stimulus bill and his massive spending proclivities as an Appropriator. All points are well taken.

But the damage done by Specter goes far deeper than this and has stayed largely off the radar screen of most close observers, much less most Americans. In his tenure as Chairman, and now ranking Republican member, of the Senate Judiciary Committee – Arlen Specter has employed marginal and often liberal staff, drained resources that could have been used by more productive conservative members of the Committee, refused to fight the liberal agenda of Patrick Leahy – often endorsing it, promoted legislation counter to Republican principles, and failed to defend President Bush’s nominees when the camera was not on him.

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