One Justice Likely To Retire

[hardheadjarhead]

Given this, do any of you think Roe v Wade will be overturned? How about other issues?

http://www.usatoday.com/life/2003-07-08-jennings_x.htm



Regards,


Steve

 

[Flatlander]

Steve, having Peter Jennings become a US citizen, while a nice show of repect for the country by him, is not cause in and of itself to overturn Roe vs. Wade. I'd say, wrong link, brother.

 

[hardheadjarhead]

Ooops! Sorry.

I'd posted that link to another thread. Sometimes when I cut and paste, it doesn't take...the previous cut and paste item gets pasted by mistake.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/05/bush.court/index.html

There you go.


Regards,


Steve

 

[Flatlander]

"We start off with the basic fact that the Democrats have filibustered and you can expect them to filibuster if the nominees are not within the broad range of acceptability," Specter said. "And I think there is a very broad range of presidential discretion. But there is a range."

Would anyone care to educate the young Canadian regarding the process of "filibustering"? I looked the word up in dictionary.com, but that definition didn't seem to really fit the context here.

 

[Xequat]

In layman's terms (like mine), a filibuster is when, for example, a Democrat who doesn't want a certain Justice to be appointed in the next four years doesn't have enough support to outvote him/her and decides to hog the floor of the Senate by reading the phone book, rambling about whatever he/she wants to talk about until the filibuster is overruled or the person giving it runs out of steam. It's a stlling technique designed as a protest as far as I know.

 

[Flatlander]

So, it IS just a stalling technique - they aren't actually able to overrule or veto a nomination.

If so, why does this tactic work?

 

[PeachMonkey]

If so, why does this tactic work?

Because the United States Senate has no formal procedural rules about the length of time or topic of debate.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_(legislative_tactic)

 

[hardheadjarhead]

See the film "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" for an example.


Regards,


Steve

 

[bignick]

yep...as long as they don't have enough votes to overrule it, a senator can stall this as long as he/she wants...

if successful it's because the people that wanted to push whatever legislation through just give up...

 

[bignick]

From http://www.newsaic.com/ftvww39n.html

"Perhaps the most significant use of the filibuster in the 20th century was in opposing civil rights legislation. Southern Democrats and conservative Republicans used the filibuster to derail civil rights litigation several times in the 1950s and 1960s; Strom Thurmond holds the record for the longest filibuster, speaking for 24 hours and 18 minutes to block the 1957 Civil Rights Act, which in a much diluted form ultimately did go to a vote and become law."