Graham gave her the one vote she needed to get out of committee. The rest of the GOP Senators voted no, and she needs at least one vote from the minority to get past the committee. Now the vote goes to the Senate floor, but it’s going to be impossible to stop her there with Graham’s defection. Other GOP votes are sure to defect as well, following Graham’s lead.
Voting against her were Sessions (R-AL), Hatch (R-UT), Grassley (R-IA), Kyl (R-AZ), Cornyn (R-TX), and Coburn (R-OK). They all deserves our thanks for their vote. Graham is showing himself to be an increasingly unreliable conservative vote, and given the state he’s from, I think we ought to expect better.
Judiciary Dems are mostly anti-gun and poorly rated. The only votes up for possible influence by NRA were Leahy and Feingold, and to a lesser degree Specter. But even with those votes, she still would have gotten out. The GOP needed to hold it together, and they failed us because of Graham.
Lindsey is very lucky he was re-elected in 2008 because if he had to run this year in South Carolina, he would be hurting.
South Carolina has turned on squishy Republicans incumbents like Bob Inglis who just lost a run-off big time.
Graham said. “I understood that we lost, Sen. Obama won, and … the Constitution requires me as a senator not to replace my judgment for his …”
Um, no it doesn’t. That’s why the Constitution requires “the advice and consent of the Senate” for SCOTUS appointments. As a Senator, you’re supposed to use your own judgment about his nominees. If you don’t think she’ll make a good justice, you’re supposed to vote against her, not bend over and take it so that the President can have his way just because he’s the President.
It makes me wish I lived in SC so I could vote against this twit.
This is why the GOP is mostly useless. They want to play the congenial game while the Democrats are destroying the Republic. Fuck that… it’s the future of a free and constitutional Republic at stake. Are we going to be America? Or a Western European style social democracy? When that’s what’s at stake, you use any chair.
Graham….The new Specter..
Wasn’t the NRA grading the vote on this? And if not, why not?
They are grading the vote on this.
Were they grading the committee vote, or just the floor vote (or both)?
Well, I guess he figures conservative voters will forget this mess in 4 years, unless of course Ms. Kagan’s decisions stay in the media spotlight.
We damn well better hope for:
– A favorable outcome this Nov
– Obama to get gone on 2012
– None of the conservative Justices die before then
or we’re screwed from a Judicial standpoint for years to come.
Grading isn’t all that formulaic, with tables of votes and weights and every election year it churns out grades. But if I were the one doing the grading, Lindsey Graham has some amends to make in terms of his voting over the next four years if he doesn’t want his grade to slip, or his endorsement to be in jeopardy. This goes double if Kagan turns out to be as bad on guns as Sotomayor has been so far.
It’s one thing if, like Leahy and Feingold, it’s a tougher thing for them to vote no…. Graham could have easily voted no. What he essentially said was that congeniality with the White House and a sense of fair play was more important to him than making sure we don’t end up with that 5th vote against us the next Second Amendment case.
No, but it should be …. and committee members should have the opportunity to be graded twice (and yes, I fault the GOA for this as well). Any other system that is not transparent (and duplicate-able) invites the claim of being a SWAG.
It can’t really be transparent and still be effective.
And the nitwh called this “bi-partisan” right after the vote.
You’ve really lost me on this one.
The NRA rating system should be formulaic (or objective), in that it should only be a result of what a politician does (as in vote), and should a direct reflection of those votes (vote for the 2A, your score goes up; vote against the 2A, your score goes down).
It should also be transparent in that everyone knows how it’s computed.
Kinda like when you were in school ….. you knew how your grade was determined. If the grading system was objective and results-oriented, if you got a bad grade you had no one to blame but yourself. If the grading system was more subjective (like in English Lit), then you spent more time trying to please the teacher than learning the lesson.
Likewise, if you know that any vote against the 2A lowers your grade (and that the NRA will shout it from the rooftops), then you’re more likely not to vote against the 2A. At least, if you value NRA members’ votes.
I fit’s formulaic, you can’t use it as a political tool. If Lindsey Graham knows exactly how much he needs to do in order to get back into good graces, how does that benefit us? It’s not just membership that’s looking at the grades… the politicians do too… and it’s fairly important for their effectiveness that they aren’t all that transparent. Otherwise you’re going to get politicians gaming the system.
Sebastian, I’m shocked, shocked that you think a politician would ‘game’ the system, any system.
Why not?
I should have said it can’t be as effective a political tool. You could still have grades, and politicians could still clamor for a good one, but if you make the process completely transparent you reduce your options.
Politics is a lot about perception, and if you had complete transparency, it would make bluffing and posturing a lot harder. For the same reasons you can’t have transparency in poker, you can’t really have it in grading.