Have Republians used Fillibuster option in the past?

[YEM]

Are the dems the only ones to use this option? Anyone know of an instance when they used it?

[Kagemusha]

1. Rather than give a long list,

I'll just say the Republicans have used it plenty when they felt it justified.

Frankly I'm sick in general of the principle that the President has a right to have his nominees confirmed. He has a right to nominate. That's the extent of his right under the Constitution. Not like anyone seems to care.

[FreedomAngel82]

13. Me too

He works for US! Whether we voted for him or not he works for us. I'm sure during FDR's time when the democrats held most of the government like republicans now they used it plenty of times. They also have probably used it during Clinton's terms. I'm sick of it too because they're supposed to, again, work for US. Not for their republican voters
or their "base."

[rpannier]

2. Here is one

WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a blow to workers, the U.S. Senate sustained a GOP filibuster against legislation to immediately aid some 150,000 laid-off aviation industry workers, including thousands of Pacific Northwest Boeing workers, who will lose their jobs as a result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Senate Bill 1454, authored by Senator Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., had enough votes to pass Oct. 11, but 44 Republicans wouldn't allow it to go to a vote.

Republican leader Trent Lott of Mississippi led a filibuster

http://www.nwlaborpress.org/2001/10-19-01Relief.html

[rpannier]

3. Here's another

The long and often controversial fight over the nomination of Nashville gynecologist Dr. Henry Foster effectively ended last Thursday as a Senate filibuster, led by Texas Republican Phil Gramm defeated the enomination.

http://static.highbeam.com/a/atlantainquirer/july011995/republicanfilibusterkillssurgeongeneralnomination/

[FreedomAngel82]

15. The only reason why

they're doing this is because they hold all the government and they never will again more than likely so they want to get more stuff done before 2006. I think they're running scared and they know they committed election fraud and know that we're mombilized to voting democrats back in to investigate things like that so maybe they're trying to take advantage of everything. I've never seen Bush work so fast on things before like this. There's always something new.

[oneighty]

4. Google says

That Strom Thurmond (Bigot Liar) held the time record for the filibuster (24+ hours) against the civil rights act.

Yes. Republicans have used it.

180

[bowens43]

8. Strom was a Democrat when he did this......

[oneighty]

11. Yes

He switched parties in 1964. I was stationed in Charleston, South Carolina in 57 and paid absolutely no attention to politics, except for L. Mendel Rivers; a regular visitor to the base where we were treated to many of his speeches which truth to tell could not be heard due to poor sound systems.

180

[never_get_over_it]

5. Yes

and this is yet another sad example of their hypocrisy....

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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[trotsky]

9. Wrong. Republicans have filibustered court appointees.

http://www.leahy.senate.gov/issues/nominations/pastfilibusters.html

They're hypocrites, plain and simple.

[FreedomAngel82]

16. But it's still unconstiutional

Crazy people high on power aren't allowed to do things like that. There has to be someone to be able to tell them "no" on the floor and filibuster it. These people are assholes and I hope, if they do make it go away, it comes back and bites them in the ass.

[babylonsister]

7. I heard Santorum say this a.m. that

the fillibuster has been used by both parties in the legislative branch, but Daeschle (sp?) invoked its usage in the executive branch to block nominees and that's supposedly never been done by repugs. That's apparently the distinction and why the repugs are making such a big deal over it.
Now, I heard him on Imus, so consider the source. :eyes:

[The White Tree]

17. Santorum, is full of crap

He wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post on Sunday. This is what he said:

Majority Vote Should Trump Minority Rule
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57780-2005Apr15.html>

(snip)
The 108th Congress witnessed an unprecedented campaign of obstruction. Of the 52 men and women the president nominated to U.S. courts of appeals, the Democratic leadership carried out filibusters against 10 and threatened filibusters against six more. Never before had the minority leadership killed even one appeals court nomination by filibuster, much less 16. Bush has had a smaller percentage of his appeals court nominees confirmed than any president in memory.

The Democrats' judicial filibusters are extreme and an arrogation of power. Under the Constitution, the right to nominate judges belongs to the executive, not to the Senate minority leader. Yet the minority leadership has claimed a right to "veto" by filibuster any nominee who deviates from the minority's extreme, ideological litmus tests. The president can submit any nomination he likes, but he knows that even if a clear majority supports his nomination, the Democrats will "filibuster-veto" it. Further, the "advise and consent" function is in serious jeopardy if this new tactic of filibustering judges continues. The Democrats have made it all too clear that they are willing to let the Constitution's separation of powers fall by the wayside if that is what it takes to push through their agenda.

(Snip)
More troubling, the Democratic leadership has written the American people out of the Constitution's system for appointing judges. The people have only two methods for influencing the selection of federal judges: their votes for president and their votes for senator. In November they rejected the presidential candidate who vowed to impose an ideological litmus test on all judicial nominees, and they chose the one who promised to appoint men and women who would uphold the law. They voted out the Senate minority leader who devised these destructive judicial filibusters and returned a Republican Senate with an enlarged majority. Senate Democrats, however, have opted to disrespect the people's voice and continue their audacious and constitutionally groundless claims for minority rule.

I thought these statements ironic given the following facts:

1. The President nominated most (all) of these judges during the period of his 1st term. As we all know he clearly did not win a majority of the popular vote in that election.

2. The actual population represented by the 44 Democratic Senators is, as was posted somewhere on DU, higher then the population represented by the current 55 Republican Senators.

So Santorum's point actually fails his own litmus test regarding the will of the majority when presented as the will of the people. I believe the democrats could make a case that in each instance they are in actuality representing the will of the majority of the people based on Rick Santorums view-point and that it is the Republicans who are the extremists who are trying to enforce minority rule.

I am going to send this point of view to some of the Democratic Senators involved to use if they think they can.

[CBHagman]

10. The GOP is trying to spin this as being against "people of faith."

The latest GOP ploy is to try to link the use of the filibuster against certain nominees to the use of the filibuster against civil rights legislation. They've tried the same trick with school vouchers, claiming that people who oppose vouchers are the same as the racists who tried to bar African-Americans from attending previously all-white schools.

Naturally, a person of faith is ONLY a person of faith as long as he/she is an appointee/nominee/elected official whose beliefs conform to Bill Frist's.

The hypocrisy is simply unbelievable.

[Gothmog]

12. John Dean has good Findlaw article on GOP use of filibuster

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20050408.html The reality is that there is plenty of filibuster precedent - and indeed, Frist himself participated in a Democratic nominee's filibuster.

In fact, the Republicans' tactics have become worse than the usual Washington balderdash, claptrap, hokum, drivel, and humbug. Rather, they are a prime example of the subject addressed by the renowned moral philosopher and emeritus Princeton philosophy professor, Harry G. Frankfurt, in his new book On Bullshit (which is climbing the New York Times bestseller list). As the professor states, "The … realm of politics replete with instances of bullshit so unmitigated that they can serve among the most indisputable and classic paradigms of the concept." That is precisely the case here.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service study found that from 1949 to 2002 thirty-five presidential nominations had been filibustered, including seventeen judicial nominations.

One that ought to have immediately come to mind for Gray was the 1968 filibuster of President Lyndon Johnson's nomination of Abe Fortas to the chief justice position - orchestrated by presidential candidate Richard Nixon. (Nixon worked with Republican Senators, who in turn enlisted Southern conservatives -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- to join them.)

But Gray claimed the Fortas filibuster never occurred because Fortas withdrew his name. In fact, as the website of the U.S. Senate clearly states, the Fortas nomination was filibustered: "Although the committee recommended confirmation, floor consideration sparked the first filibuster in Senate history on a Supreme Court nomination. On October 1, 1968, the Senate failed to invoke cloture ." Fortas withdrew his name only when it became clear the White House could not defeat the filibuster.

Finally, according to the well-publicized finding by law professor Herman Schwartz, in March 2000, Majority Leader Frist himself participated in the filibuster against Clinton judicial nominee Richard Paez. (In the end, Judge Paez was confirmed for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after a cloture vote.)

[Dr Ron]

14. Frist has participated in at least one filibuster

Sorry, I'm too busy at the moment to hunt down the actual article. I'm almost positive I have an article mentioning Frist participating in a filibuster in one of these spots:

http://kerrylibrary.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=278

and/or:

http://kerrylibrary.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=279

There's also lots of other articles on Frist, DeLay, Republican Congress, and court appointees in these two sections.

[Toots]

18. What we have going here is the Tyranny of the Majority

Congress is supposed to be a Deliberative Body. How can it deliberate on anything without allowing the minority a voice on issues and appointments. If our forefathers didn't think it was necessary to guarantee the minority had a voice they would never had created the filibuster. The Democrats did not create the filibuster. These tools are there for a reason and it is too bad America is sooooo stupid they can not understand that reason. America is By the people for the people and of the people. Not by Republican, for Republican, and of republican. It is all of the people. Eliminate filibuster create fascism.....What other possible reason is there for denying the minority a voice?

[wicket]

19. lots of great info in this thread

This is why I love DU! :)