Salazar, Bush Must Consult with Senate

In a recent letter by Ken Salazar (D-CO), the Senator tries to put the best spin on his broken campaign promise to give President Bush's judicial nominations an up or down vote on the Senate floor.

Evidently, he's betting that the electorate isn't paying close attention to the Democrat's obstruction policy.

He states, "I joined 13 of my Senate colleagues...To end the judicial nomination impasse that has threatened to destroy the...historic processes of the U.S. Senate."

Senator, you're obfuscating. The Constitution states, "Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings,..." Nowhere does it state that a super majority vote is needed for closure on a judicial nomination.

When the Democrats were in the majority your own Senator Robert Byrd changed Senate rules, according to columnist Robert Novak in a CNN report.

Byrd's use of a simple majority rule to make Senate rules fit the wishes of dominant Democrats during the 1970s and 1980s was revealed by legal scholars in January[2005].

It took Byrd's lawyers until March 20 for him to claim he did not do what he did. In fact, there is no doubt Byrd led the Democrats in championing majority rights when they had a majority.

Salazar goes on to state that 14 Senators "pledged to use the right of filibuster only under 'extraordinary circumstances,...' In addition this agreement includes an admonition to the President that he consult with the Senate before proposing judicial nominees - a historic tradition and practice contemplated by our Founding Fathers and one followed by our Presidents from George Washington to Bill Clinton." (Bold letters added).

Notice how the Senators parses his words; "practice contemplated by our founding Fathers." They may have contemplated, but they didn't implemented. Senator John Cornyn (R-TEX) writes: ...

The Founders believed that the president — not the Senate — should control the nomination of judges, including Supreme Court justices. As Alexander Hamilton noted in Federalist No. 66, I[i]t will be the office of the president to nominate, and with the advice and consent of the senate to appoint. There will of course be no exertion of choice on the part of the senate. They may defeat one choice of the executive . . . but they cannot themselves choose — they can only ratify or reject the choice, of the president." Hamilton explained why this was important in Federalist No. 76, where he wrote that "one man of discernment is better fitted to analyze and estimate the peculiar qualities adopted to particular offices than a body of men . . . . A single well directed man by a single understanding, cannot be distracted and warped by that diversity of views, feelings and interests, which frequently distract and warp the resolutions of a collective body." Thus, as renowned constitutional scholar and historian David Currie has pointed out, President George Washington consulted with the Senate on the negotiation of future treaties, yet "no comparable practice emerged with regard to appointments; from the outset the President simply submitted the names and the Senate voted yes or no. . . . Madison, Jefferson, and Jay all advised Washington not to consult the Senate before making nominations."

On Tuesday, Bush is to meet at the White House with Senate leaders, Democrats as well as Republicans, to discuss the court vacancy. The group is to include Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on that panel.

But to what end. When the President makes his nomination and it is not a candidate approved by Democrats; Senator Schumer is sure to claim that the president did not act in good faith.