The Republican Insurgency against the Judicial Branch

Our country is in the midst of a full-blown “politically-motivated” judicial crisis.
That’s the conclusion of a new report from the Alliance for Justice, a watchdog group located right here in Washington, DC.
The group looked at the number of federal judges confirmed since Republicans took over the Senate in January, and what it found was shocking.
So far this year, the Republican-controlled Senate has confirmed just six federal judges, the fewest it’s confirmed in the first 8 months of a year since 1953.
We’ve never seen anything like this before in our history, or at least not in our recent history.
As of today, President Obama is on pace to have fewer judicial confirmations over the final two years of his presidency than any president since World War II
Even the Democratic-controlled Senate during the final years of the George W. Bush administration got its act together, did its constitutional duty, and approved 68 judges.
Today’s Republicans, though, could care less about doing their constitutional duty - they just hate President Obama.
Even though Chief Justice John Roberts warned three years ago that we were heading towards a major judicial crisis if something weren’t done soon about the rising number of judicial vacancies, they’ve gone ahead and delayed votes, put off hearings, and done pretty much everything in their power to stop the senate from voting on Obama’s nominees.
This, of course, comes as the number of federal judicial vacancies has jumped from 43 to 67 and the number of federal judicial emergencies has jumped from 12 to 31.
Apparently having a functioning court system isn’t on the top of Republican priorities.
And here’s the thing: it’s not like the nominees President Obama has put forward are unqualified or super liberal - they’re not.
Every time one of their nominations has been put to vote, they’ve been confirmed unanimously.
What’s really going on here is another example of the Caucus Room Conspiracy, the plot Republicans hatched on the day Obama took office to prevent him, our nation’s first black President, from building up any legacy whatsoever.
On January 20, 2009, the night when the Obamas were dancing at inaugural balls and most Americans were out celebrating the end of the Bush years, a group of powerful Republicans was planning the end of Obama presidency before it even got going.
At the Caucus Room restaurant right here in Washington, DC, GOP leaders drew up a plan to intentionally sabotage Obama at every point possible.
On the guest list for this “invitation only” meeting were Republican Senators like Jim DeMint, Jon Kyl, Tom Coburn, John Ensign and Bob Corker.
Also in attendance were Congressmen Paul Ryan, Pete Sessions, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Eric Cantor, and Kevin McCarthy.
The whole thing was orchestrated by Republican propaganda mastermind Frank Luntz and over the course of four hours, this group of the most powerful conservative lawmakers in the country committed to a plan of action.
They promised each other that they would filibuster and obstruct any and all legislation supported by the new President, Barack Obama.
They would do everything possible, for as long as it took, to make his a "failed presidency.”
Congressman Pete Sessions of Texas compared the plan to the tactics of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
He said, “Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban. And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person’s entire processes... And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with.”
The current crisis in the federal judiciary is just another front in this Republican insurgency campaign.
It’s the political version of guerrilla warfare.
And the really scary thing is that it’s not just about sabotage.
Screwing over President Obama is great as far as Republicans are concerned, but it’s really more of a means to an end: the total takeover of the federal judiciary.
Ever since the Powell Memo in 1972, corporatist conservatives have made hijacking our nation’s courts one of their top priorities.
They’ve done a pretty good job at it, too. The far-right Federalist Society, for example, now dominates our court system and our Supreme Court.
But if Republicans can successfully keep their manufactured judicial crisis going until President Obama leaves office in 2017, that’ll be the real Republican victory.
That’s because if they manage to both hold on to the Senate in 2016 and win the White House, they’ll have free reign to fill up our courts with as many hard-right corporate- and billionaire-friendly judges as they want.
If that happens, you can kiss labor laws, environmental laws, and maybe even universal healthcare good-bye.
The stakes really are that high, which is why Democrats need to start fighting back against the Republican insurgency with everything they have.
Like guerrilla armies throughout history, today’s Republicans are successful because they break all the rules of the game and have a clear endgame.
The only way Democrats can beat them is to have a clear endgame themselves and fight tooth and nail to achieve it.
That means getting out to vote, and, as difficult as it might sound right now, campaigning hard for whoever ends up winning the Democratic nomination for president - and fighting particularly hard for state, local, and congressional progressives.
The future is at stake, and right now the Republicans in Congress are trying to strangle it.
Comments


If they keep control and take the W.H. plan on total war on them. Anything goes. They deserve it ten fold. Disgusting traitors.
Tom gives a lucid overview of the Repub stratagy on appointing judges.
But how is it that Repubs can legally so gum up the works?
While the founding fathers constructed brilliant checks to
block the rise of a king, in todays world those checks are exactly
the levers that Repubs are exploiting.
Until those flaws are amended, each majority party is going to sing the same
sad song about the evil minority party.
ct

Why do people continue to refer to Obama as "our first black president"? He's only half black. At best we could call him "our first not-all-white" president, or "our first mulatto president"; or, to paraphrase George Jefferson (I'm going to offend a few people with this): "our first zebra president". Obama is our first mixed-race president, and that's still a positive step forward.
If it were up to me, I would require the media to drop the first-anything phrase and just say "he's our president".
For me, personally, he's "our first president younger than me"; but that's nothing special about him...I'm just getting old.

This is why we need a Constitutional provision that says if the Senate doesn't bother to vote on a nominee within a reasonable amount of time (I'd say 6 weeks), then the nominee automatically gets in as if he or she were a recess appointee.

Hephaestus -- Why do you say US politicians when 95% of the damage is done by repugs?

stecoop1 -- In our society, even if you are only 25% black, no white privilege for you.

cccccttttt -- Please try to analyze the "singing". One of the most important characteristics of a democracy is a lot of "singing".
Hard finding words to describe this attitude of US politicians... their lack of understanding of your constitution and obvious disregard for their duty to constituants is thoroughly disgusting
They should be charged with sedition