ConfirmThem

With McCain voting against Sotomayor, there are 27 Republican votes against Sotomayor. It does not look like there will be any Democrats voting against her. Both Baucus and Nelson have come out now for her.

It is interesting that McCain and Graham split on Sotomayor. I wonder why. It should be noted, however, that McCain voted against her as a COA judge in 1998. Maybe he felt restrained by that previous vote.

There are now seven "missing" votes: Murkowski, Voinovich, Barrasso, Bond, Ensign, Enzi, and Gregg.

of Sotomayor. Too bad. I thought that there was a serious chance that he's vote no.

Mark Begich is still undecided, although I don't think he'll vote no. He is a liberal on pretty much everything except for ANWR and the 2nd Amendment.

Say what you want about Sotomayor (and I reckon that many here have very little nice to say), but McCain's rationale here is absolutely more of a partisan bitch-fest. He supports activist judges, just so long as they're the activist flavor that he supports. And his "maverick" moniker just gets weaker and weaker--I wonder how upset he will be when his favorite activist judges (Chief Justice Roberts, Justices Alito and Thomas) rule that his campaign finance reform legislation is unconstitutional.

Sotomayor is going to be confirmed--I'm sorry, but America voted liberal right down the margin in November 2008, and left-of-center is what we must deal with until 2010, at least. And when Sotomayor gets to the bench, she'll be just as disappointing to liberals as she is to conservatives, because it's middle-ground from here on out.

I'd say it's about time for this website to change it's name to "Don'tConfirmThem," since that is obviously what is supported here. 17 names are sitting in the "waiting" column. Five nominees for U.S. attorney are being held-up.

In February 2008, President Bush made a press release that stated, "there are more than 180 highly-qualified nominees awaiting a fair vote in the Senate." Both sides like to hold up the other team's progress. It should never, ever be applauded. I say call the vote, let the yea's and nay's fall where they may.

He wouldn't suddenly say that his promised yea vote was only to get vote out of committee would he?

Why change the name of this website? We haven't taken a position on Sotomayor. Sheesh.

The name "Confirmthem" relates to the fact that the Democrats in the 108th Congress actively sought to block Bush's appellate nominees with filibusters because they viewed those nominees as havinga conservative judicial philosophy. No one here is suggesting that Sotomayor be filibustered, only that her liberal judicial philosophy be considered in her confirmation. If a senator decides that her judicial philosophy would undermine what the Founding Fathers wanted when they wrote the Constitution, he has every right to vote against her. Remember, it was the Democrats who introduced this new standard into the judicial confirmation process. After all, isn't that why Obama voted against Roberts and Alito? It is illogical to say that Obama SHOULD have considered judicial philosophy but that McCain SHOULD NOT.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003185548

"While the Democrats’ large margin all but ensures Sotomayor’s confirmation before the Senate recess Aug. 7, the situation could be different for Obama’s future Supreme Court picks, particularly if the nomination could alter the court’s ideological balance.

'If a conservative leaves the court, there will be a huge, huge battle,' said Jeffrey Segal, a political science professor at Stony Brook University. 'And if this is after the 2010 elections and the Republicans pick up a few seats, you could readily imagine a filibuster.'"

No one is seriously considering filibustering any of Obama's choices to the Court. And even if Obama appointed a 40 year old Laurence Tribe, no one would be considering filibustering him for Souter's replacement.

OTOH, if say Kennedy/Scalia were to retire for some reason, I think a filibuster would have to be considered if the nominee was extreme. Sotomayor would barely avoid a filibuster in that circumstance, if at all.

I will try to keep my response to your comments uncharacteristically brief (I make no promises, though!):

--svandoren is right that many lower-court and executive-branch nominees currently are being held up by GOP senators. Since unanimous consent (bizarrely) governs the Senate, for the time being the GOP can stop a large number of nominees -- including those for posts that never have been blocked before. Reid can file for cloture on any given nominee (as he did on Harold Koh and Robert Groves), but that consumes time, and he's obviously trying to get GOP senators on board with unanimous consent instead of many cloture votes. So far, his efforts aren't working. My guess is that the Dems in the Senate will repay the next GOP president in spades when it comes to executive-branch nominees. I have no idea where or how this all ends.

--The article BoBo forwarded is fascinating. As I keep noting, I long have felt that bipartisan days truly *are* gone for SCOTUS nominees, and future court battles will only be more contentious, with 75 Senate votes to confirm a pipe dream for any nominee. If Obama somehow were to eventually get to replace even one or possibly two of the five that often form the conservative majority, there would be lots and lots of GOP complaining and yes, to JamesSmith130's point, surely a Republican attempt at a filibuster (even a potentially unsuccessful one, since there would be serious advocacy money at stake). Similarly, had McCain won in '08, there's no doubt that the Dems would be at a minimum filibustering (and more likely, outright voting down) pretty much anyone McCain chose to replace Souter (and later on, Ginsburg, and Stevens, and....), unless and until he caved (which his base would never forgive him for) and instead picked someone super-mysterious (Souter 1990) or even outright left-leaning. Until one side definitively captures the SCOTUS (which really could happen -- for either side -- depending on the outcome of the next 2-3 presidential elections; Kennedy's not going to be around forever), the battles are going to be uglier and uglier.

--No offense to any of the esteemed posters and commenters here, but the name of this website is fairly silly -- and dated. As BoBo notes, it reflects a period in time based on a specific set of circumstances that were bound to eventually change (I don't think anyone thought that Republicans would hold the White House forever, any more than anyone thinks that the Democrats will hold it forevermore). Despite what Andrew has written in the past (about this site being about supporting nominees), I don't think anyone here thinks this site truly is about supporting *Obama's* nominees, particularly given that it sprang up as an objection to Dems' opposition of so many Bush 43 nominees. Am I wrong about this? I don't hear much of a siren call on this site for up-or-down votes on any of Obama's non-SCOTUS nominees, particularly after the last eight years. But, I think most of us generally just ignore the site's name anyhow; between 1) Democrats' rejecting Bork and jettisoning Bush 41's late-term COA nominees, 2) Republicans' blocking and not holding hearings on many Clinton COA nominees, and 3) Democrats' opposition to Alito and Roberts and filibustering and postponing hearings on many of Bush 43's COA nominees, there's long been plenty of hypocrisy on all sides to go around, as I've always said. Does this site need a name change? (as Ed Whelan suggested on January 30 -- he suggested OpposeThem or ExposeThem: http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzY1MjczYzM5YzU3ZThmNzg2OGRkOTc5... ) Nah, of course not -- even though I think the name isn't particularly relevant, it's a brand, and it's known (and bookmarked) as such in the blogosphere. To change it now would be unnecessary. I'd love to know if others feel differently -- and how they feel the name of the site squares with their own philosophies on consideration of a president's nominees.

--AndrewHyman, don't you think you're being a tad disingenuous when you write that "We haven't taken a position on Sotomayor"? You yourself wrote on July 12 that "since we probably won't be supporting confirmation of Judge Sotomayor,...." (http://www.confirmthem.com/reminders_about_the_sotomayor_nomination) That seems pretty close to a position to me!

--Well, so much for my efforts at brevity. I wound up developing far more virtual real estate than I had anticipated! Thanks for your indulgence, everyone.

Change committee/Senate rules on nominees.

1. No filibusters of any nominees. You can tweak a bill but you can't tweak a person.
2. No blue slips, secret holds, etc. Say what you want to say in public.
3. Committee hearing within 30 days of a nomination.
4. Committee vote within 30 days of the hearing. This allows time for follow-up written questions.
5. Senate debate and vote within 30 days of committee vote.

oh yeah, and

6. These changes take effect January 20, 2013.

The blog posts at this site are few and far between, and the reason is that we're waiting for nominees to support. If we wanted to turn this site into an anti-Sotomayor site, I assure you we would have done a much better job of it.

--Regarding how to handle delays, someone please nominate bk to oversee the Senate's Rules Committee! (and impose this on both parties instead of allowing for the Senate's tradition of "open debate" on judicial and executive-branch nominees -- that tradition has of course enabled the many logjams)

I can't think of any way to improve on bk's incredibly practical (if obviously far-fetched) proposal! Well done!

--AndrewHyman: thanks for the clarification. Of course I hear what you're saying about waiting for nominees to support. And I do understand the difference between active support (Roberts/Alito), non-support (Sotomayor), and active opposition, and where ConfirmThem has chosen to situate itself, rhetoric-wise. At the same time, I think that's a distinction that's often lost on most of the people on the outside. And not just dilettantes -- that Ed Whelan comment (http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzY1MjczYzM5YzU3ZThmNzg2OGRkOTc5...) from January suggests that even close observers of judicial nominations are more than a bit puzzled by the continued use (and meaning) of the name.

White House Counsel Craig is the man in charge of judicial nominations. Discussions of him possibly being forced out have nothing to do with Obama's judicial nominations (or lack thereof) so far, however:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124935604510503669.html

It would have been a surprise if he'd said he'd vote yes on Sonia:

http://www.startribune.com/nation/52446012.html?elr=KArks:DCiUMEaPc:UiD3...

Well, actually it's the "best guess of a Senate Republican source" of Geraghty's:

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTYzNTRhZTM2NmI5ZjNlYjYyO...

I will make a final prediction of a 65-32 vote instead. I haven't seen an update in the Maryland newspapers, but I'm not sure Mikulski (a yes vote) will be able to make the Sotomayor vote because of her recovery from ankle surgery. Even if she does, though, I still think some other senator may have some other duty calling him/her away. I had heard that Ted Kennedy was going to try to make the vote as well, although recent reports about his health make me think that that's not even remotely likely. Regardless, I'd guess that the Democrats lose sure three "yes" votes in the form of some combination of Byrd, Kennedy, Mikulski and some other senator who has some other business (or pleasure!) calling him/her away.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/sen.-bond-is-7th-republican-to-back-...

"Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) announced his support for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Wednesday, becoming the seventh Senate Republican to back the first Hispanic nominee to the high court.

Bond told colleagues in a floor speech that he would respect the president’s prerogative to select Supreme Court justices."

I didn't think of him as a fence sitter, but I suppose he's done with his career anyway.

Id be shocked if Voivonich was a no at this point.

nt

http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=10855524

"Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she would not support Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, during a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday."

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090805-720811.html

"Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., became the eighth Republican senator to say he planned to support Sotomayor when the Senate votes on her nomination later this week."

If he follows the lead of fellow retirees Bond and Gregg, he will vote for Sotomayor. That sets up a final 69-31 confirmation vote tomorrow.

Reid just announced the time on the Senate floor.

This pretty much splits the difference between the Roberts and Alito votes, but with 2.5 times the percentage of Rs voting for her as Ds voted for Alito.