Swing State Project

The Crybaby Option

In early 2003, then Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott first used the term "nuclear option" to describe a plan to abolish the filibuster as we know it.   He picked this colorful phrase because it fully captured how extreme it truly is to blow up 200 years of Senate tradition.

Problem is, "nuking" the Senate doesn't poll well, so the Republicans have tried and tried to convince everyone that Democrats came up with the term and that they prefer to call it something else entirely.  Even some in the so-called liberal media have started using "constitutional option," presumably because the Republican talking points said so. 

Remember - this whole issue is only a big deal because right wing Republicans started whining about not getting their way on every single judicial nomination.  Winning 95% of the time apparently wasn't enough for them.  Heck, maybe we should just start calling it what it is - the crybaby option.

The Lion Roars

Sen. Ted Kennedy has been on the Senate Judiciary Committee for years and knows the difference between good nominees and bad nominees.  And, boy, has Bush nominated some real stinkers!
 
Now you can learn just how bad these nominees truly are by reading about their long records of extremist activism on Kennedy's web site.

http://www.tedkennedy.com/unqualified

Do yourself a favor.  Try not to throw anything at the computer while you're reading.

That isn't easy to do.

Priscilla Owen:

• Owen consistently reverses jury decisions involving claims of wrongful discharge, injury on the job, and worker compensation;
• Owen frequently dissents in cases upholding protections against discrimination, sexual harassment, and other workplace abuses;
• Owen consistently dissents in cases involving upholding consumer protections, narrowly interpreting laws that protect consumers;
• Owen has consistently favored overturning jury verdicts that would hold business accountable for abuses;
• Owen supported the reduction and elimination of buffer zones designed to protect reproductive health care clinics in Houston;
• Owen opposed a woman’s right to choose in at least thirteen cases involving the ability of pregnant minors to obtain an abortion if a judge finds them mature enough to make their own decision;
• Owen has been accused of judicial activism by her Republican colleagues on the Texas Supreme Court, including Bush administration Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

William Myers:

• Myers has consistently worked to protect private property rights at the expense of environmental concerns. For example, he has opposed federal authority to protect wetland areas under the Clean Water Act.
• In the two years he served as Interior Department Solicitor, he issued only two opinions, both of which overturned regulations that protected environmental interests from private development.
• His constant work on behalf of industry interests in his capacity as Solicitor at the Interior Department resulted in a number of disturbing conflicts, two of which resulted in ethics investigations; one of those investigations is still ongoing.

Janice Rodgers Brown:

• A 1999 dissent drafted by Brown suggested that the First Amendment allows employees to use racial epithets in the workplace;
• A Brown decision would have barred administrative agencies from awarding compensatory damages in race discrimination cases;
• A Brown opinion would have struck down a law requiring paint companies to help fund treatment of children exposed to lead paint;
• Rated "unqualified" by three-fourths of the state bar's examiners when nominated to the California Supreme Court;
• Brown told a meeting of the Federalist Society that “where government moves in, community retreats [and] civil society disintegrates”;
• Brown has said that government leads to “families under siege, war in the streets…”
• Brown said that “when government advances, freedom is imperiled [and] civilization itself jeopardized.”
• Brown told an audience that people of faith were embroiled in a “war” against secular humanists who threatened to divorce America from its religious roots.

These people a crazy and the fact the Republicans will destroy the Senate to force these extremists upon America is proof that the Nuclear Option really is the Crybaby Option