California Conservative

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) may’ve read Thomas Sowell’s editorial, because his remarks on the senate floor this morning echoed the same themes.

Namely, the Democrats’ efforts to deny a vote for (or against) President Bush’s judicial nominees isn’t a matter of rights, but rather an example of bigotry framed by historical example.

As Sowell writes:

“The essence of bigotry is denying other people the same rights you have. For generations, it was racial bigotry which provoked filibusters to prevent the Senate from voting on bills to extend civil rights to blacks. But bigotry is bigotry, whether it is racial bigotry, religious bigotry or political bigotry.

People who say that the right of unlimited debate in the Senate “has served this country well” can seldom, if ever, point to any specific benefit that has come from any specific filibuster.

In a nutshell:

The real issue is whether those Senators have the right to deprive all other Senators of the right to vote on these nominees. Nothing that is said for or against Justice Owen or Justice Brown has any relevance to the issue of some Senators denying other Senators the right to vote.

Exactly.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 20th, 2005 at 10:30 am and is filed under Activism, Law, Liberals, W, Washington, DC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.