Plenty of Talk About Senate Filibusters

Re “Senate Primed for Filibuster Showdown,” April 4: Never have our basic democratic traditions been in such grave danger as they currently are from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s (R-Tenn.) plan to unveil the “nuclear option,” which would end the centuries-old, time-tested safeguard against majority excess known as the filibuster.

This procedural device was installed as a check against a majority run amok with a fanatical agenda, the precise reason why the far right wing in Washington now wants to dismantle it.

President Bush and his backers from the business community and the religious right have a vision in mind for all of us. They want a country with a judiciary that will rubber-stamp their anti-consumer, anti-worker, anti-poor, anti-disabled, anti-civil-rights, anti-religious-freedom agenda.

Our tripartite form of government was established by the founding fathers specifically to prevent the type of majority abuse that the most extreme factions of the Republican Party are now trying to achieve.

Why? Because, out of the more than 200 judicial nominations that Bush has sent to the Senate, the Democrats have filibustered 10 of them, only the worst of the very worst.

Nominees like William H. Pryor Jr., who called Roe vs. Wade the “the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history.” Apparently, he forgot about Plessy vs. Ferguson and Dred Scott.

As a lawyer, I have had the misfortune of appearing in front of result-oriented, agenda-minded, right-wing judges, before whom an individual citizen has absolutely no chance whatsoever of prevailing against big business or the government, no matter what the facts or applicable law.

It is not an exaggeration to state that our very way of life is at stake in this monumental battle.

Freedom-loving, fair-minded Americans must unite against this threat to our open, compassionate society. Because the precious liberties, which we have come to accept as Americans, have never been in such grave peril.

Jeffrey H. Friedman

Santa Ana

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The Republican plan to stop the blockade of the president’s judicial nominees isn’t nearly as radical as we’ve been led to believe. All it really involves is restoring constitutional order to a process that’s been hijacked by Senate liberals.

The issue isn’t whether Democrats approve of the White House’s nominees; it’s that they have perverted parliamentary procedure to prevent those nominees from being voted on by the full Senate.

That’s the travesty the GOP is poised to reverse by restoring the 51-vote threshold needed for confirmation.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) has been so vehement in his opposition to the plan that he has accused GOP leadership of employing “Nazi” tactics. That’s particularly odd coming from him, since he’s led efforts to change Senate precedents at least four times in the past, in some cases specifically to stop filibusters.

Democrats have changed their tune now because they want to hold on to power -- and keeping conservatives off the courts is their last, best hope to do so. Don’t be fooled.

Loyd Turner

Lakeland, Fla.