From MoveOn.org and the DNC
For months, Senate Democrats have been heroically holding out against President Bush's nominations of extremist judges to America's most powerful courts. We've supported these Senators in this fight. Now the right wing is trying to break our resolve.
Despite the fact that the Senate has confirmed 168 of his nominees, the right wing is hopping mad that we've blocked just 4 of the most hard-core ideologues. We've insisted that only moderates be confirmed for these lifetime appointments to positions of incredible power over our lives. They're refusing this reasonable compromise.
Republicans have scheduled 30 hours of debate in the Senate on this issue, beginning TONIGHT. They're hoping that our friends there, who have courageously supported filibusters* blocking the most extremenominees, will fold under this pressure.
We've got to buck up our friends in the Senate. Please join us in signing an important petition, cosponsored by the Democratic National Committee, at:
http://www.democrats.org/courts/moveon.html
If you sign on now, the DNC will hand-deliver your signature, along with more than 100,000 others, to Senate leaders on Thursday, in time to make a real difference in this debate.
This debate is about appeals court nominees, but we all know it's also a test run for a possible Supreme Court vacancy, which could occur soon if justices Rehnquist or O'Connor retire. Experts consider either of these retirements a strong possibility. (It looked like one might occur last summer, when we first launched this petition.)
Our campaign to stop Bush's extremist nominees has been extraordinarily successful so far. Miguel Estrada, who was widely thought to be President Bush's top pick for the Supreme Court, withdrew his name from consideration after Senators filibustered his nomination, supported by more than 40,000 phone calls from MoveOn members. This was a major victory -- the first time Bush has conceded defeat on any nomination.
Your signature on this petition will support filibusters against these other right-wing ideologues:
- Janice Brown, whom the New York Times described as "among the very worst" of Bush's nominees, also writing that: "As an archconservative justice on the California Supreme Court, she has declared war on the mainstream legal values that most Americans hold dear."
- Priscilla Owen, who represents the "far right wing" of the Texas Supreme Court. One of her many rightward dissents from that court's majority opinions was described as an "unconscionable act of judicial activism" by Alberto Gonzalez, who was then also a justice on the Texas court but is now President Bush's chief White House Counsel.
- Carolyn Kuhl, who threw out a suit brought by a woman with breast cancer whose doctor had brought a drug company salesman into the examining room where he witnessed an intimate examination of her. A unanimous appeals court later reversed Kuhl's decision.
- Charles Pickering, who took extraordinary and ethically questionable steps to try to reduce a mandatory jail sentence for a man convicted of burning an eight-foot cross on the lawn of an interracial couple.
The debate begins tonight. Please sign on now, at:
http://www.democrats.org/courts/moveon.html
Thanks for all you do.
Sincerely,
- Carrie, Eli, James, Joan, Noah, Peter, Wes, and Zack
The MoveOn team
Wednesday, November 12th, 2003
* For more information on filibusters, see:
http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/bulletin11.html
For additional information on these nominees, see:
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=12320