Robert Byrd Quotes
And the president is all wrong when he maintains that a nominee should have an up-or-down vote. The Constitution doesn't say that. The Constitution doesn't say that that nominee shall have any vote at all. There doesn't have to even be a vote.
Byrd, Robert C. Congressional Record, vol. 151, 10 May 2005.
Most legislative bodies have rules about when and under what conditions a vote is taken. Amendments, procedures, committees all have procedures where votes may be taken that could defeat a nomination or a proposed law but if those defeats fail, there still is not necessarily a law passed or a nomination confirmed. That has to be a separate vote, often called an “up or down vote.” One parliamentary mechanism for opposing a bill or a nomination is to keep voting on amendments and procedures and never have an up or down vote. This is actually true with the vast majority of the laws proposed in both houses of the Congress. Most never do have an up or down vote. Why Gerhatdt and other ask should judicial nominations be different from any law, or any other presidential nomination? Also see {588517} for another factor.
President George W. Bush had ignored a federal law and tapped the phones of Americans without probable cause and a warrant issued by a court. The President’s defenders argued that the President, as Commander in Chief, has the Constitutional responsibility to lead the military and protect the nation. Intelligence gathering is part of military activity. Therefore the intelligence gathering is a Constitutional duty and the Congress, under the separation of powers doctrine, may not interfere with the President’s Constitutional Duty to conduct intelligence. Under this doctrine, the President need not obey laws that he believes impinge on his management of the war effort and the defense of the nation. Most legal scholars believe that this argument is nonsense, but the George W. Bush administration has stated the doctrine and it was the subject of much litigation.
See {588514} for an additional take on the subject.
Lott and other Republicans who objected to Democratic Filibusters of a few judges. Later in the Obama administration he and Republicans had no problem when the Republican Senate minority filibustered just about everything—nominations, laws, budgets, treaties. They had more filibusters in that Congress than there had been in all of Senate history. It is always an issue of whose ox is gored with rampant hypocrisy on both sides in dealing with the filibuster concept. However, no majority in recent years has tried to change the filibuster, though the majority always complains about it.
In 1953 the Senator had proposed a Constitutional amendment that would severely curtail the treaty making powers of the President. President Eisenhower actively opposed Bricker and the right wing of his own party. The Senator was outraged. Despite Bricker’s complaining, the public and the Congress sided with the President.
The United States government had for many years deposited all its funds in a single private bank, the Bank of the United States. In 1833, President Andrew Jackson, without any congressional authorization, ordered the federal deposits to be distributed among state banks instead. The Senate was furious and passed the first resolution of censure of a President in United States history:. Carried by a vote of 26 to 20. Four years later a pro-Jackson Senate majority voted to expunge the resolution.
Robert Carlyle Byrd was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from West Virginia for over 51 years, from 1959 until his death in 2010. A member of the Democratic Party, Byrd also served as a U.S. Representative for six years, from 1953 until 1959. He remains the longest-serving U.S. Senator in history; he was the longest-serving member in the history of the United States Congress until surpassed by Representative John Dingell of Michigan. He was the last remaining member of the U.S. Senate to have served during the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower, and he was the last remaining member of Congress to have served during the presidency of Harry S. Truman. Byrd is also the only West Virginian to have served in both chambers of the state legislature and both chambers of Congress.
