What Can You Ask A SCOTUS Nominee?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in General Politics, Supreme CourtApparently, not that much. From the NY Times:
Senator Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican who sits on the Judiciary Committee as well, said the push for such detailed positions was highly objectionable and suggested that Democrats might be forming a strategy of trying to derail a nomination on the ground of withholding information.“You cannot ask a judge to prejudge a specific matter,” Mr. Sessions said. He pointed to other cases in which Democrats had raised objections to Bush administration nominees in part on the ground that information was being withheld, including the nomination of John R. Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations. “If the Democrats are pushing that, then they are trying to create an issue,” he said.
Listen, Senators need evidence to make sure the nominee that they approve isn’t going to be a so called “activist” judge. We need a moderate to replace a moderate. Period.
However, Orrin Hatch seems to be the (rather harsh) voice of reason here.
And Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said in an interview: “Any member of the committee can ask whatever they want, no matter how stupid. But I don’t think nominees have to answer certain questions. They don’t have to answer questions about how they are going to vote in the future. They don’t have to answer stupid questions. They don’t have to answer argumentative cases.”
I agree with his sentiments, but calling certain questions stupid is well…I think you can fill in the blank here.
However, if Dems are going to ask the nominee how they’re going to vote in the future, I agree that the nominee doesn’t have to answer the question. No one person can ever say what they’re going to do in the future. On the contrary they can simply say they don’t know and have that be that.
What the Dems should be looking at is their past voting record. That should give the best indication if this nominee can be trusted on the highest bench in the land.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 6th, 2005 and is filed under General Politics, Supreme Court. 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.
