At today's Senate Judiciary Committee vote, Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) explained the significance of the party line vote on Joseph Alito and why future Democratic Presidents will have difficulty asking for bipartisanship on judiciary nominations.
I fear a very bad precedent is being set today, a precedent that a unanimous minority will oppose a nominee on political grounds, not because the nominee is in any way unqualified. Republicans did not apply that test to Justices Breyer or Ginsburg.
And I say precedent because it is simply unrealistic to think that one party will put itself at a disadvantage by eschewing political considerations while the other party almost unanimously applies such considerations.
So I say to my Democratic friends, think carefully about what is being done today. Its impact will be felt well beyond this particular nominee.
As this is my inaugural post on South Dakota Politics, I would like to thank the organizers of this site for inviting me to join as an occasional contributor and introduce myself with as little tedium as possible. I'm Michael Freeman, a native of Freeman, SD, a 1980 South Dakota State University graduate, former communications director for U.S. Senator Jim Abdnor and formerly a press spokesperson for Larry Pressler's first successful U.S. Senate campaign in 1978. Currently, I am executive vice president for a health care trade association and am occasionally called upon to write speeches for a number of corporations, associations and prominent individuals who shall not be named because I'm too lazy to ask for their permission. Most importantly, I'm a long-time reader of this site and look forward to adding my voice periodically to the already-excellent mix here.
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