Download or read book Constitutionality of a Senate Filibuster of a Judicial Nomination written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Senate cloture rule requires a super-majority vote to terminate a filibuster (i.e., extended debate). The Appointments Clause of the Constitution, which provides that the President is to "nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, ... appoint" judges, does not impose a super-majority requirement for Senate confirmation. Critics of the Senate filibuster argue that a filibuster of a judicial nomination is unconstitutional in that it effectively requires a super-majority vote for confirmation, although the Appointments Clause does not require such a super-majority vote. It has been argued that the Senate's constitutional power to determine the rules of its proceedings, as well as historical practice, provide the foundation for the filibuster. The question of the constitutionality of the filibuster of a judicial nomination turns on an assessment of whether the Senate's power to make rules governing its own proceedings is broad enough to apply the filibuster rule to nominations. Several factors have the effect of entrenching the filibuster (i.e., making it possible to filibuster a proposed amendment to the rules). Supporters and critics of the filibuster of judicial nominations disagree about the relative roles of the President and the Senate in regard to judicial appointments, about whether the Senate has a duty to dispose of the President's judicial nominations in a timely fashion, and about whether a simple majority of Senators has a constitutional right to proceed to a vote on a nomination. The constitutionality of the filibuster might be challenged in court, but it is uncertain whether such an action would be justiciable (i.e., appropriate for judicial resolution). Standing and the political question doctrine would be the primary justiciability issues raised by a court challenge to the filibuster rule.

Download or read book Constitutionality of a Senate Filibuster of a Judicial Nomination written by Jay R Shampansky and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report provides an overview of the major issues which have been raised recently in the Senate regarding the Judicial Nominations, Filibusters, and the Constitution: When a Majority Is Denied Its Right to Consent and in the press concerning the constitutionality of a Senate filibuster (i.e., extended debate) of a judicial nomination.

Download or read book Constitutionality of a Senate Filibuster of a Judicial Nomination RL32102 written by Jay R. Shampansky and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report provides an overview of the major issues which have been raised recently in the Senate regarding the Judicial Nominations, Filibusters, and the Constitution: When a Majority Is Denied Its Right to Consent and in the press concerning the constitutionality of a Senate filibuster (i.e., extended debate) of a judicial nomination.

Download or read book Judicial Nominations Filibusters and the Constitution written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Constitutionality of a Senate Filibuster of a Judicial Nomination written by Todd Tatelman and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 11 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Advice and Consent written by Lee Epstein and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-09-15 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Louis Brandeis to Robert Bork to Clarence Thomas, the nomination of federal judges has generated intense political conflict. With the coming retirement of one or more Supreme Court Justices--and threats to filibuster lower court judges--the selection process is likely to be, once again, the center of red-hot partisan debate. In Advice and Consent, two leading legal scholars, Lee Epstein and Jeffrey A. Segal, offer a brief, illuminating Baedeker to this highly important procedure, discussing everything from constitutional background, to crucial differences in the nomination of judges and justices, to the role of the Judiciary Committee in vetting nominees. Epstein and Segal shed light on the role played by the media, by the American Bar Association, and by special interest groups (whose efforts helped defeat Judge Bork). Though it is often assumed that political clashes over nominees are a new phenomenon, the authors argue that the appointment of justices and judges has always been a highly contentious process--one largely driven by ideological and partisan concerns. The reader discovers how presidents and the senate have tried to remake the bench, ranging from FDR's controversial "court packing" scheme to the Senate's creation in 1978 of 35 new appellate and 117 district court judgeships, allowing the Democrats to shape the judiciary for years. The authors conclude with possible "reforms," from the so-called nuclear option, whereby a majority of the Senate could vote to prohibit filibusters, to the even more dramatic suggestion that Congress eliminate a judge's life tenure either by term limits or compulsory retirement. With key appointments looming on the horizon, Advice and Consent provides everything concerned citizens need to know to understand the partisan rows that surround the judicial nominating process.

Download or read book Defending the Filibuster written by Richard A. Arenberg and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2014-12-12 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This award-winning study of today’s filibuster debate provides a historical overview of Senate rules and an updated analysis of recent controversies. In an age of increasingly divided partisan politics, many argue that the Senate filibuster is undemocratic or even unconstitutional. Recent legislative disputes have brought criticism of Senate rules into sharp relief, and demands for abolition or reform of the filibuster have increased. In Defending the Filibuster, two experts on Senate procedure—a veteran Senate aide and a former Senate Parliamentarian—argue that the filibuster is fundamental to protecting the rights of the minority in American politics. Richard A. Arenberg and Robert B. Dove provide an instructive historical overview of the development of Senate rules, describe related procedures and tactics, and argue passionately for measured reforms. Thoroughly updated, this edition includes a new chapter recounting the events of 2012–13 that led to the first invocation of the "nuclear option" to restrict the use of the filibuster for presidential nominations, as well as a new foreword by former US Senator Olympia Snowe. The authors offer a stimulating assessment of the likelihood of further changes in Senate procedure and make their own proposals for reform. Winner, 2012 ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year, Gold Medal in Political Science

Download or read book Supreme Court Appointment Process written by Denis S. Rutkus and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2010-08 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contents: (1) Pres. Selection of a Nominee: Senate Advice; Advice from Other Sources; Criteria for Selecting a Nominee; Background Invest.; Recess Appoint. to the Court; (2) Consid. by the Senate Judiciary Comm.: Background: Senators Nominated to the Court; Open Hear.; Nominee Appear. at Confirm. Hear.; Comm. Involvement in Appoint. Process; Pre-Hearing Stage; Hearings; Reporting the Nomin.; (3) Senate Debate and Confirm. Vote; Bringing Nomin. to the Floor; Evaluate Nominees; Filibusters and Motions to End Debate; Voice Votes, Roll Calls, and Vote Margins; Reconsid. of the Confirm. Vote; Nomin. That Failed to be Confirmed; Judiciary Comm. to Further Examine the Nomin.; After Senate Confirm.

Download or read book Ideas with Consequences written by Amanda Hollis-Brusky and published by Studies in Postwar American Po. This book was released on 2015 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of these questions--including the powers of the federal government, the individual right to bear arms, and the parameters of corporate political speech--had long been considered settled. But the Federalist Society was able to upend the existing conventional wisdom, promoting constitutional theories that had previously been dismissed as ludicrously radical. Hollis-Brusky argues that the Federalist Society offers several of the crucial ingredients needed to accomplish this constitutional revolution. It serves as a credentialing institution for conservative lawyers and judges, legitimizes novel interpretations of the constitution through a conservative framework, and provides a judicial audience of like-minded peers, which prevents the well-documented phenomenon of conservative judges turning moderate after years on the bench. Through these functions, it is able to exercise enormous influence on important cases at every level.

Download or read book The Federal Appointments Process written by Michael J. Gerhardt and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2001-01-02 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the federal appointment of U.S. judges and executive branch officers has consistently engendered controversy, previous studies of the process have been limited to particular dramatic conflicts and have tended to view appointments in a vacuum without regard to other incidents in the process, other legislative matters, or broader social, political, and historical developments. The Federal Appointments Process fills this gap by providing the first comprehensive analysis of over two hundred years of federal appointments in the United States, revealing crucial patterns of growth and change in one of the most central of our democratic processes. Michael J. Gerhardt includes each U.S. president’s performance record regarding appointments, accounts of virtually all the major confirmation contests, as well as discussion of significant legal and constitutional questions raised throughout U.S. history. He also analyzes recess appointments, the Vacancies Act, the function of nominees in the appointment process, and the different treatment received by judicial and nonjudicial nominations. While discussing the important roles played by media and technology in federal appointments, Gerhardt not only puts particular controversies in perspective but also identifies important trends in the process, such as how leaders of different institutions attempt to protect—if not expand—their respective prerogatives by exercising their authority over federal appointments. Employing a newly emerging method of inquiry known as “historical institutionalism”—in which the ultimate goal is to examine the development of an institution in its entirety and not particular personalities or periods, this book concludes with suggestions for reforms in light of recent controversies springing from the longest delays in history that many judicial nominees face in the Senate. Gerhardt’s intensive treatment of the subject will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, government, history, and legal studies.

Download or read book The Senate Filibuster written by Emmet J. Bondurant and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion that the Framers of the Constitution intended to allow a minority in the U.S. Senate to exercise a veto power over legislation and presidential appointments is not only profoundly undemocratic, it is also a myth. The overwhelming trend of law review articles have assumed that because the Constitution grants to each house the power to make its own rules, the Senate filibuster rule is immune from constitutional attack. This Article takes an opposite position based on the often overlooked history of the filibuster, the text of the Constitution and the relevant court precedents which demonstrate that the constitutionality of the Senate filibuster rule is not, as many have assumed, a political question that is beyond the jurisdiction of the federal courts. This Article proceeds in four parts. Part I traces the history of the filibuster, documents the recent surge in filibusters and explains why the rules of the Senate, including the filibuster rule, cannot be amended by a simple majority vote as can the rules of the House of Representatives. The Senate filibuster rule is responsible for much of the partisan gridlock in Congress, and has replaced majority rule with a tyranny of the minority. The Senate is incapable of reforming its rules for the same reasons that state legislatures and Congress refused to reform of the apportionment of state legislative and congressional districts. If reform is to come, it will not come from within the Senate, and can only come from the courts as occurred in the case of congressional and state legislative districts, the one-house veto, and the line-item veto cases. Part II examines the historical evidence that reveals that there was no “right” of unlimited debate at the time the Constitution was adopted and that the filibuster is nothing more than an unintended consequence of a decision by the Senate to delete the previous question motion from its rules in 1806. That decision was based on the naïve assumption that the rule was unnecessary because Senators were gentlemen who would never attempt to obstruct the business of the Senate by abusing the privilege of debate. This Part examines the filibuster in the light of the debates at the Federal Convention, the Federalists Papers and the express language of Article I the Constitution all of which were premised on the democratic principle of majority rule. When the Framers of the Constitution intended to condition action on a vote or more than a simple majority of the House or Senate, they did so expressly in six carefully defined exceptions - and significantly rejected the only proposals at the Federal Convention that would have prohibited a simple majority from passing legislation prior to its presentation to the President. Although defenders of the filibuster argue that the Constitution gives each house the power to make its own rules, this power is not absolute. The Supreme Court ruled over a century ago that this rule-making power does not include the power to adopt rules that violate other provisions of the Constitution. Finally, this Part also argues that Senate Rule V, which provides that the rules of the Senate to continue from one Senate to the next and prohibits the Senate from amending its own rules without a two-thirds vote, is also unconstitutional. In Part III, I confront the skeptics who contend that the federal courts are barred by the separation of powers and the political question doctrines from ruling on the merits of the constitutionality of the rules of the Senate. The Supreme Court ruled in 1892, however, that the question of whether a House rule violated other provisions of the Constitution was a matter for the federal courts. Part III also addresses the issue of standing on which previous challenges to the Senate filibuster rule have foundered. This Part demonstrates that there are a number of potential plaintiffs with standing, including the Vice President, sitting members of the Senate and the House, individuals who would have been direct beneficiaries of measures that passed the House but died in the Senate, presidential appointees whose nominations were denied a confirmation vote as a result of actual or threatened filibusters, and organizations such as Common Cause. These individuals and entities have all been directly injured and would have standing to challenge the Senate filibuster rule. Part III also explains that the courts are fully capable of granting complete relief without “rewriting” the rules of the Senate, simply by the entry of a declaratory judgment declaring the supermajority vote portions of Rule XXII unconstitutional. Part IV address the common arguments espoused in favor of the filibuster, such as the contention that it prevents the passage of hastily adopted legislation, promotes compromise, and prevents the “tyranny of the majority.” I also address the unfounded contentions that “we have always had a filibuster” and “it's only a rule of procedure.” Lastly, I answer the argument that the “remedial discretion” doctrine, a doctrine unique to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, would doom any legal challenge to the filibuster. The filibuster is unconstitutional. The arguments to the contrary are weak. And the courts have both the power and duty to strike down the Senate Rules that conflict with the Constitution.

Download or read book Supreme Disorder written by Ilya Shapiro and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-09-22 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2021: POLITICS BY THE WALL STREET JOURNAL "A must-read for anyone interested in the Supreme Court."—MIKE LEE, Republican senator from Utah Politics have always intruded on Supreme Court appointments. But although the Framers would recognize the way justices are nominated and confirmed today, something is different. Why have appointments to the high court become one of the most explosive features of our system of government? As Ilya Shapiro makes clear in Supreme Disorder, this problem is part of a larger phenomenon. As government has grown, its laws reaching even further into our lives, the courts that interpret those laws have become enormously powerful. If we fight over each new appointment as though everything were at stake, it’s because it is. When decades of constitutional corruption have left us subject to an all-powerful tribunal, passions are sure to flare on the infrequent occasions when the political system has an opportunity to shape it. And so we find the process of judicial appointments verging on dysfunction. Shapiro weighs the many proposals for reform, from the modest (term limits) to the radical (court-packing), but shows that there can be no quick fix for a judicial system suffering a crisis of legitimacy. And in the end, the only measure of the Court’s legitimacy that matters is the extent to which it maintains, or rebalances, our constitutional order.

Download or read book Senate Cloture Rule written by and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Exceptions to the Rule written by Molly E. Reynolds and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2017-07-18 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Special rules enable the Senate to act despite the filibuster. Sometimes. Most people believe that, in today's partisan environment, the filibuster prevents the Senate from acting on all but the least controversial matters. But this is not exactly correct. In fact, the Senate since the 1970s has created a series of special rules—described by Molly Reynolds as “majoritarian exceptions”—that limit debate on a wide range of measures on the Senate floor. The details of these exemptions might sound arcane and technical, but in practice they have enabled the Senate to act even when it otherwise seemed paralyzed. Important examples include procedures used to pass the annual congressional budget resolution, enact budget reconciliation bills, review proposals to close military bases, attempt to prevent arms sales, ratify trade agreements, and reconsider regulations promulgated by the executive branch. Reynolds argues that these procedures represent a key instrument of majority party power in the Senate. They allow the majority—even if it does not have the sixty votes needed to block a filibuster—to produce policies that will improve its future electoral prospects, and thus increase the chances it remains the majority party. As a case study, Exceptions to the Rule examines the Senate's role in the budget reconciliation process, in which particular congressional committees are charged with developing procedurally protected proposals to alter certain federal programs in their jurisdictions. Created as a way of helping Congress work through tricky budget issues, the reconciliation process has become a powerful tool for the majority party to bypass the minority and adopt policy changes in hopes that it will benefit in the next election cycle.

Download or read book Supreme Democracy written by Richard Davis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Supreme Court nominations were driven by presidents, senators, and some legal community elites. Many nominations were quick processes with little Senate deliberation, minimal publicity and almost no public involvement. Today, however, confirmation takes 81 days on average-Justice Antonin Scalia's former seat has already taken much longer to fill-and it is typically a media spectacle. How did the Supreme Court nomination process become so public and so nakedly political? What forces led to the current high-stakes status of the process? How could we implement reforms to improve the process? In Supreme Democracy: The End of Elitism in the Supreme Court Nominations, Richard Davis, an eminent scholar of American politics and the courts, traces the history of nominations from the early republic to the present. He examines the component parts of the nomination process one by one: the presidential nomination stage, the confirmation management process, the role of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the increasing involvement over time of interest groups, the news media, and public opinion. The most dramatic development, however, has been the democratization of politics. Davis delves into the constitutional underpinnings of the nomination process and its traditional form before describing a more democratic process that has emerged in the past half century. He details the struggle over image-making between supporters and opponents intended to influence the news media and public opinion. Most importantly, he provides a thorough examination of whether or not increasing democracy always produces better governance, and a better Court. Not only an authoritative analysis of the Supreme Court nomination process from the founding era to the present, Supreme Democracy will be an essential guide to all of the protracted nomination battles yet to come.

Download or read book Judicial Nominations Filibusters and the Constitution written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Free to Move written by Ilya Somin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-23 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ballot box voting is often considered the essence of political freedom. But it has two major shortcomings: individual voters have little chance of making a difference, and they face strong incentives to remain ignorant about the issues at stake. "Voting with your feet," however, avoids both these pitfalls and offers a wider range of choices. In Free to Move, Ilya Somin explains how broadening opportunities for foot voting can greatly enhance political liberty for millions of people around the world. People can vote with their feet through international migration, choosing where to live within a federal system, and by making decisions in the private sector. Somin addresses a variety of common objections to expanded migration rights, including claims that the "self-determination" of natives requires giving them the power to exclude migrants, and arguments that migration is likely to have harmful side effects, such as undermining political institutions, overburdening the welfare state, increasing crime and terrorism, and spreading undesirable cultural values. While these objections are usually directed at international migration, Somin shows how a consistent commitment to such theories would also justify severe restrictions on domestic freedom of movement. By making a systematic case for a more open world, Free to Move challenges conventional wisdom on both the left and the right. This revised and expanded edition addresses key new issues, including fears that migration could spread dangerous diseases, such as Covid-19, claims that immigrants might generate a political backlash that threatens democracy, and the impact of remote work.