The "Ranking Member" of the Senate Judiciary Committee* isn't. Not really. Or at least only relatively. It's the senior member of the minority party, and in the case of the current committee, that's now Alabama's own Sen. Jeff Sessions. He's taking the place of the former "Ranking Member". That would be Arlen Specter, who's no longer "Ranking Member" because he crossed the aisle, abandoning the GOP to become a Democrat. So while Specter has lost that "rank" position, you could argue he's now got an even better position. As a member of the majority on the committee. There are seven Republicans and twelve Democrats, and they'll decide, among other things, the nomination of whomever President Obama picks to fill David Souter's place on the U.S. Supreme Court. From the in-state media reports on Senator Session' appointment, you would have thought he had been named Chair of the Judiciary Committee (that would be Senator Patrick J. Leahy, (D-Vermont), one of the few members to have voted on the nomination of every current Supreme Court Justice.) Senator Sessions' job will be to represent the opposition to President Obama's nominee, no matter who that may be. He'll get to ask the nominee pointed questions and have a bully pulpit from which to shout his objections. But like the little yapping dog who is loud and annoying, at the end of the day a good kick will take care of the disturbance. A kick in the form of a 12 - 7 vote. Or 11 - 8. Or 10 - 9.
[* as of this morning, the committee website still shows Sen. Specter as a Republican and as ranking member.]
[UPDATE: TIME Magazine's profile of Sessions refers to him as "perennial bomb thrower" and suggests he'll create some sparks in the hearings. Also covers Sessions own experience being rejected by the same committee when he was nominated for a judgeship 23 years ago. And The Press-Register's George Talbot also weighs in on Sessions being one of three Alabamians getting lots of national press these days.]
[UPDATE: Salon quotes Sen. Sessions: "Nominees can be Democrats," Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican who was elected Tuesday afternoon to become the GOP's leader on the Judiciary Committee, said magnanimously not long afterward. "They can be liberals. As long as they have a deep commitment to the law and recognize that when they put on the robe, that they go beyond politics and they're required to subordinate themselves to the law as written."]
>>But like the little yapping dog who is loud and annoying, at the end of the day a good kick will take care of the disturbance.<<
ReplyDeleteLOL! I can't stand Sessions. He is a throw back to people like Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms and every time he opens his pie hole I am once again ashamed to be from the same state.
He is rumored to have once said that he thought the Klan was ok until he learned that some of them smoked pot....among many other very disturbing racist quotes.
Lovely guy that Sessions
Jeff Sessions... arrgh!
ReplyDeleteIn addition to being a jug-eared dimwit... his undignified accent only serves to reinforce a negative Southern stereotype.
His smart-aleck remark at the hearings about firearms crossing from the U.S. into Mexico, ostensibly being used in narco-traffficking, did not escape me.
Having watched, in its entirety, the testimony, and hearing his snide, remarks to the chair toward the end, as well as his condescending tone and verbalizations to those testifying, was an abomination!
It'd be analogous to hearing someone from Mexico saying something like "'X' is a problem and here are some of the crimes I've witnessed personally because of..." and Sessions would respond with something like, "I like tacos, and Mexico is a lovely nation."
IDIOT!
On one hand, I'd like to see him squirm on the hot seat to some question like "Mr. Sessions, since you were rejected for a federal judgeship years ago, do you think you can be objective in your assessments?"
But, that would be out of character for the Senate. In the House, it might fly, but not in the demurely dignified Senate.