BREAKING NEWS: Leahy speaks sense
A regular reader of Captain Ed’s blog sends the Captain some words of wisdom from Senator Pat Leahy:
I mention this because Governor Bush and I, while we disagree on some issues, have one very significant issue on which we agree. He gave a speech awhile back and criticized what has happened in the Senate where confirmations are held up not because somebody votes down a nominee but because they cannot ever get a vote. Governor Bush said: You have the nominee. Hold the hearing. Then, within 60 days, vote them up or vote them down. Don’t leave them in limbo.
Frankly, that is what we are paid to do in this body. We are paid to vote either yes or no–not vote maybe.
When we hold a nominee up by not allowing them a vote and not taking any action one way or the other, we are not only voting “maybe” but we are doing a terrible disservice to the man or woman to whom we do this. They have to put their life on hold. They do not know what is going to happen: Are they going to be confirmed, or not? It is not like when any one of us runs for election; we know that on a certain day the election occurs.
We either win or we lose. But we know that on that Tuesday, we are going to know our fate. We won or we lost.
These people come here and they never know what may happen. They don’t know whether they will have a hearing. And if they have a hearing, they don’t know if there will be a vote in committee. And if there is a vote in committee, they don’t know whether they will come on the floor. And if they come on the floor, they don’t know if they will have a vote because one person hiding in the Cloakroom will say: Don’t allow it to come to a vote yet. So they may have 99 Senators voting for them but somebody mysteriously in the background says “Don’t vote,” and they don’t vote.
Okay, so that was back in 2000, when he was talking about shining happy Clinton nominees, not shrewd, calculating, yet stupid, knee-jerk, reactionary, mouth-breathing, Christian-evil Bush nominees.