Why do I constantly write about committee seats and ranking members and chairpeople and who controls them? Because the committees are where laws are made, judges are vetted, and oversight and investigations are held. All the work of the Congress goes in committees or subcommittees and they are poorly understood. Even I consider myself uninformed about how they function and which bills derive from which committees.
There is probably no more important committee than the Senate Judiciary. Right now it is very interesting to look at the make-up of that committee, which sent both John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the floor for a confirming vote. Even though its chairman, Arlen Specter, is pro-choice he didn’t care that Roberts and Alito are not. Here are the rest of the Republicans on Judiciary, ranked by seniority.
Orrin Hatch- Utah
Charles Grassley- Iowa
Jon Kyl- Arizona
Mike DeWine- Ohio
Jeff Sessions- Alabama
Lindsey Graham- South Carolina
John Cornyn- Texas
Sam Brownback- Kansas
Tom Coburn- Oklahoma
The chairman is pro-choice and Jewish, but the rest of the Republicans are white, male, and Christian. Well, Hatch is a Mormon. But you don’t see Olympia Snowe or Gail Collins or even Elizabeth Dole or Kay Bailey Hutchison. There is a good reason for that. The Republican base is rabidly anti-choice and they want anti-choice judges confirmed. Thus, they keep the committee solidly, rabidly anti-choice and Specter on a short leash. The Dems are a mirror image.
Patrick Leahy- Ranking Member, Vermont
Edward Kennedy- Massachusetts
Joseph Biden- Delaware
Herbert Kohl- Wisconsin
Diane Feinstein- California
Russ Feingold- Wisconsin
Chuck Schumer- New York
Richard Durbin- Illinios
All of them are solidly pro-choice. None of them come from states that will punish them for blocking anti-choice judges. It’s no accident. And that is why the Dems will never put Harold Ford or Bob Casey on the Judiciary committee.
There are 18 members of the committee and the Dems will have 10 votes if they take the Senate. I would strongly urge the Dems to fill those two spots with women. Maybe the newly elected Amy Klobuchar and Claire McCaskill would like to join Diane Feinstein in the boy’s club. Or maybe Hillary Clinton would like the job. Regardless, as long as the Dems hold the majority on this committee, no judge can get to the floor for a vote without at least two Democrats approving of them. Actually, if one Democrat defects and the vote is 9-9 it will be up to Leahy. He can send the judge to the floor without a recommendation if he wants to. That’s what Dick Lugar did with John Bolton when Voinovich balked at voting him out of the Foreign Relations committee. Bolton was filibustered and then recess appointed. You can’t recess appoint a judge.
In any case, if you are worried that electing pro-life Democrats will do nothing to protect women’s rights, you can stop worrying. When it comes to women’s rights, nothing is more important than control of the Judiciary Committee. And if Ford and Casey win, they will vote for another pro-lifer, Harry Reid. And then Reid will make sure no pro-lifers get anywhere near the Judiciary Committee.
If we win the Senate and Bush gets to appoint another Supreme Court judge, he will have to select someone that Pat Leahy approves of. He will have to select someone that at least two Democrats can support. And all of his judges for lower courts will face the same problem.
On another topic, we will probably find numerous ways to be disappointed in a Democratic House, but one thing we can rejoice about is that Nancy Pelosi is going to screw Jane Harman out of her seniority and not allow her to take the chair of the intelligence committee. Why?
Ms. Harman, a moderate from Southern California, has been one of the party’s most outspoken voices on national security matters since the Sept. 11 attacks. But she has also drawn sharp criticism from more liberal Democrats, including Ms. Pelosi, who have privately said that she has not sufficiently used her position to attack the Bush administration for its prewar intelligence failures on Iraq and for its use of secret programs like the domestic eavesdropping carried out without warrants by the National Security Agency.
Ms. Harman is one of few people former CIA Director and neo-conservative James Woolsey has given money to (Lieberman is another). She is under investigation for enlisting AIPAC to lobby Pelosi to let her have her chair. Pelosi is apparently infuriated with this approach and is considering either Alcee L. Hastings of Florida or Silvestre Reyes of Texas for the position.
Ultimately, Pelosi will choose the chairs. She will grant almost all the chairs to the people that currently are ranking members. She apparently has a big grudge against John Dingell of Michigan and she could screw him out of the Energy and Commerce chair. But I see almost zero prospect that she will mess with John Conyers or Henry Waxman. And those are the two members that will be most responsible for investigating the administration.
My guess that it is is not a grudge but the realization that higher fuel efficiency standards will never make it out of committee as long as he is chair.
Dingell’s a bad guy to piss off. He’s pretty solid here.
It could be both. You’re right. Dingell is there to prevent stricter CAFE regulations.
be named chair of Judiciary, possibly finding another plum job for Leahy? And would that be prestigious enough to dissuade her from a Presidential run, especially if, as the rumor mill has speculated, Reid may step down and use his influence to name her Majority Leader (President Pro Tem in a Democratic Senate, IIRC)? I admit that I’m not sure of the politics of the situation.
We’re going to need a real uniter in 2008, to heal the wounds made by the faux “uniter” currently in office, and I see her as being too divisive (partially her fault, partially the right-wing’s, and partially society’s)…
Seniority is a tricky thing to mess with. Ultimately, Reid could put Hillary in as chair of the Judiciary committee, but it would ruffle too many feathers. The only position in the Senate that has the potential to keep Hillary from running for Senate is the Majority Leader. And that is not out of the question.
There are some interesting things that will happen in the Senate though. For example, Paul Sarbanes the ranking member on the banking committee and he is retiring. That puts Chris Dodd in line for the position. But Dodd is also the ranking member on the rules committee. He can’t keep both and will probably choose to take over Banking. Next in line for rules are Byrd (ranking on Appropriations) and Inouye (ranking on Commerce). Neither of them will want to give up their plumb jobs, so Rules could fall to Diane Feinstein.
Meanwhile, assuming that Lieberman wins, he stands to be the chair of the Homeland Security and Government Reform Committee. Most Dems do not want Lieberman to be in charge of government oversight but they are worried that he will bolt the party if he is denied. But there might be a solution. Max Baucus is ranking member of both Environment and Finance. He will want Finance, which leaves an opening on Environment. Lieberman is next in line for that job. Would he be satisfied with the chair on environment? If not, it could fall to Barbara Boxer, who would finally get a chair.
Lot’s of possibilities.
to see Boxer as chair of Environment — she deserves a chairperson seat.
I’d like to see Lieberman as a permanent commentator at FOX News (“Remember, it’s FOX not facts!”), but I’ll need some help from the voters in CT…
Plum jobs aside, the thought of Robert Byrd, Mr. Parliamentarian, the Conscience of the Senate, chairing the Rules Committee strikes me as a thing of beauty, of profound poetic justice.
Leiberman is now a Dem again? I thought he bolted and he’s the Jomentum Party? How could he be in line for a chair if he just sent himself to the bottom of the pecking order, since he’s not a Dem?
I believe that if he is elected as an independent, he loses his seniority as a Democrat. That’s why many Southern Democratic Senators didn’t change parties in the 70’s and 80’s, even though they often voted with the Republicans. The ones who did switch often had guarantees from the Repub’s that they would get Chairmanships. I’ll check it out and get back to you, if no one else can verify or correct my memory.
This should explain the Lieberman seniority question:
The Hill
So he clearly would lose his seniority, if he needs a promise from Reid (as Joe claims and Reid denies) to keep it.
Sad to see how party loyalty is such a flexible commodity; for sale I’m sure.
No problem. It’s always good to reinforce those fading chunks of knowledge rattling around in my head.
Politics is about deals. Also, Joe is a long-time member of the club. If he scrambles back into the Senate, the Dems need to make him an offer to get what support then can from him. You can bet the Repubs will make him an offer. It stinks, but it’s politics.
McCaskill would make a great member of the committee, being a woman and pro-choice. And she’s a lawyer (a former prosecutor).
But I suspect she’d be more likely to end up on agriculture and armed services, where Talent is now. She’s spent a lot of her campaign pushing armed services oversight.
If (when) she wins, she won’t have a safe seat. The election will be close. And rural Missouri is rabidly pro-life. All reasons for her to avoid Judiciary where her views become high profile (and more inflammatory in rural Missouri) and just vote on the floor.
Of course I could be wrong. She’s tough. She may just decide she wants to plunge right into the fray.
The fact she is from such a swing-state argues against putting her on Judiciary, but she is running as a pro-choice candidate.
Patty Murray is another option. Or Boxer. Or Stabenow. In any case, more women. One woman is not nearly enough.
I don’t care if a chair is male or female, as long as he/she knows what he/she is doing and listens to what the people want!
Is MO still home of many large agribusinesses? That might be why the Missouri Senators always want to be the argicuulture committee. Like Dingell on transportation.
In any case, if you are worried that electing pro-life Democrats will do nothing to protect women’s rights, you can stop worrying. When it comes to women’s rights, nothing is more important than control of the Judiciary Committee. And if Ford and Casey win, they will vote for another pro-lifer, Harry Reid. And then Reid will make sure no pro-lifers get anywhere near the Judiciary Committee.
How much of your personal anatomy are you willing to risk to back up this statement. Talk is cheap, but the consequences of you being wrong on this are enormous to millions and millions of people, mostly women. I sure would feel better about electing people who are smart enough to see the wisdom in pro-choice freedoms and not religious fanatics who will destroy this country eventually, no doubt.
On that religious destruction matter, I just got a nice letter from the ACLU listing the dangers of religious fanaticism under Bush and how hard ACLU is trying to fight this in the courts. Long live the ACLU, and I have finally seen the light as to where my contributions should be going nowadays. They should be going to support the ACLU instead of to a party that cannot support or maybe even define its own principles!
I feel this devisive party-line committee makeup is truly the onus of democracy (along with corporate personhood and about 40 other things), so much I’ve come up with a solution.
Draw chits out of a hat to see who gets put on a committee! Whee! That would create chaos, but then it also would encourage 3rd and 4th parties to form, no?
Just a flippant idea folks.
third and fourth parties cannot form in winner-take-all elections. They never will.
I must say, after so many years of this intensive news reading, discussion, blogging and such, I get giddy with silliness, and don’t think through my humor.
Thanks Boo.
My favorite flavor of Sky Pie is to always vote against the incumbent. I’m suspicious of politicians who get comfortable in Washington. It’s a bad plan, but a nice dream.
Draw chits out of a hat to see who gets put on a committee! Whee! That would create chaos, but then it also would encourage 3rd and 4th parties to form, no?
Even if term limits could not be made law, this is still a great idea. The main reasons why power is so poorly distributed in Congress is because of the power of seniority, which is evil in a democracy. Why should a new senator from state A have ANY LESS POWER THAN a mindless Stom Thurmond after 50 years in the Senate. Also, would voters be as likely to return a braindead senator to office if that senator had only equal power with a newly elected senator with a brain, not to mention the ability to be less puppet-like for handlers who have figured this all out.
No, I think your above idea is the next best thing to sliced bread where sliced bread would be term limits of 12 years or less!
Term limits here in MI have had the effect of making the lobbyist more powerful. If you have a constantly changing House and Senate, you lose institutional memory. The only continuity is provided by the lobbyists. They are the ones who know how to get things done, not the novice legislators.
Besides, I don’t like relying on a structural change to clean house. You get a Bw/BW problem. Some of the babies are worth keeping, even if the bath water is filthy.
It’s more fun to vote ’em out anyway.
All of them are solidly pro-choice.
No not even that is true. We know precisely how solidly ‘pro-choice’ Chuckie Schumer is, Patrick Leahy voted for that stupid and unconstitutional ‘partial birth’ abortion bill and all those ‘strategists’ are going to be enchanted by the Casey win in a state where most of the residents are pro-choice. And, after all, it’s not as if any of you, the assorted pols, the christians or the fathers will actually have to support all those children.
But damn we’re going to fuck with you.
In any case, if you are worried that electing pro-life Democrats will do nothing to protect women’s rights, you can stop worrying.
I stopped worrying once Alito was confirmed and the spineless assholes couldn’t even manage a filibuster. The future is pretty clear to anyone not lying, ignorant or in denial. We’re screwed and we’re going to be screwed for a good long while. The Democratic party won’t protect women’s rights and certainly won’t do anything to further women’s right’s untill we have a new Democratic party and one way less dominated by idiots and assholes.
Way to miss the entire point of the diary.
If the Dems had the majority in the Senate, Alito WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN NOMINATED because Pat Leahy would have said ‘no-way’. It wouldn’t matter whether a Gang of 14 existed or not because we wouldn’t even need a filibuster.
oh please. Believing it doesn’t make it so, especially with the Dems recruiting the likes of Casey and Webb. THE DEMS APPROVED CLARENCE THOMAS, fer xrist’s sake. They took the filibuster off the table as the courts are moved further and further right. THEY ROLLED OVER ON THE GREAT WRIT.
Facing the dire nature of our predicament is scary, but it’s past time to face the reality of our situation. These wealthy, connected, MALE “leaders” don’t give a shit about anything more than continuing the status quo. The choice btwn the Dems and the Reps boils down to a choice between authoritarian management styles. Nothing more, nothing less. Maybe the Dems management would have more peon appreciation days, maybe they’d hand out more small bonuses, but they will still be cutthroat managers, none the less.
Way to miss the entire point of the diary.
cough. I did not miss the point, such as it is. I disagree with your faith based approach and astonishing naivety when it comes to the politics of defending MY BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS.
If the Dems had the majority in the Senate, Alito WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN NOMINATED because Pat Leahy would have said ‘no-way’.
This is your belief and one I do not share.
that just shows that you don’t understand how things work and that is why I wrote this diary.
Ever since Robert Bork it has been obvious to all White Houses that it just isn’t worth it to nominate a judge that the Judiciary Committee hasn’t pre-approved. Actually, it was clear to everyone but Bush, who assumed the committee would accept anyone and gave them Harriet Miers. Bad idea.
In this connection both Scalia and Thomas are trotted out relentlessly as counter examples. They are not counter examples. With Scalia, Mario Cuomo threatened to screw anyone that voted against him and he was the presumed front-runner for the 1992 nomination. It was an opportunity to get an Italian-American on the court. Cuomo regrets his actions. Thomas got through for one reason. He was replacing Thurgood Marshall and he was black. At the time the court was much more moderate and one right-wing judge didn’t seem like life of death. That is not the case now that the court rules 5-4 on issue after issue.
Losing a supreme court nominee battle is not good for any administration and they avoid it if they are remotely competent.
As an example, both Breyer and Ginsberg were pre-approved by Hatch and he was the ranking member. That’s how much Clinton wanted to avoid a fight. The Repubs don’t shrink from a fight but they have no reason to nominate someone that can’t get approved by the ruling party in the Senate. They’ve made that mistake once already.
Why would Leahy okay someone like Alito? Answer. He wouldn’t. John Roberts? Maybe. I still doubt it.
that just shows that you don’t understand how things work
I understand quite well ‘how things work’. What I want to know is what you (and so many other operatives and operative wannabes) are going to be saying when it becomes undeniably obvious that you’re wrong, that we (and by ‘we’ I most certainly do not mean you) cannot count on a Democratic senate to take a stand for our most basic civil rights. When Schumer and Reid and the rest of that bunch continue to aggressively force more Fords and Caseys down our throats will you stand with us? Because I don’t think you or the ‘progressive’ bloggers will.
Why would Leahy okay someone like Alito? Answer. He wouldn’t. John Roberts? Maybe. I still doubt it.
I’m being constrained here. From the POV of the women you were condescending to and telling not to worry there isn’t much difference between Roberts and Alito (or Casey and Santorum or Ford and Vitter) THEY ALL SUCK and even if I granted you your amazingly simplistic and naive view of How Things Work and bought the equally ridiculous notion that it does not matter how many abominations like Casey we elect as long as Leahy is Chair of the Judiciary committee (which I most emphatically do not) does it not strike you as possibly insulting to your audience to continue to argue that the basic civil rights of all women in the country live or die with one old Catholic man from Vermont so don’t fucking WORRY? Jeeze
What I said was that you shouldn’t worry that electing a Democratic majority that includes a couple new lifers would not help safeguard women’s rights. I did not say not to worry about women’s rights.
If you read this blog, as I know you do, it should be well established in your mind that I do not support anti-choice Democrats, and in particular I do not support them being annointed by Chuck Schumer.
The point of the diary is that the judiciary committee is where the rubber meets the road and that the Dems, just like the GOP, will fill it with Dems that are safe from being set-up where they feel they have to vote to confirm a conservative judge.
That is how things work.
Most people know little about committees.
I wish that there 100 pro-choice Senators. That is not the point here. The point is that a Democratic majority will do more to protect women’s rights than any other single thing we could accompish this November. And that is true in spite of Casey and Ford. This diary explains why.