Video highlights from AFJ's Conversation with Jeffrey Toobin

We've put several excerpts from AFJ's Conversation with Jeffrey Toobin on our YouTube page.

In addition to the portion of the discussion dealing with DOMA and Proposition 8 (also available on this Blog here) there's a discussion of the impact of the three women justices on the Supreme Court, and a dialogue about presidents and the court.

There's also the answer to the question: Did Justice Scalia really call Justice Thomas "a nut"?

The entire video is at www.afj.org 

Not that we'd ever say "we told you so," but ...

... remember how, on Friday, when commenting on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell filibustering his own bill, AFJ President Nan Aron said: “If we didn’t know better we’d think Sen. McConnell was moonlighting as a writer for The Daily Show or The Colbert Report”? And remember how on Twitter we said people should watch the self-filibuster before The Daily Show got hold of it?

Well ...

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Mitch McConnell's Self-Filibuster
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Of course, there are some very serious issues behind all this; we have an overview on our new resource page on Senate rules reform.  And there's much more at the website of Fix the Senate Now

The urgent need to fix the Senate

Graphic courtesy Fix The Senate Now

As we've noted before on this Blog, the failure of the United States Senate to confirm judges is part of a wider failure – the failure of the Senate itself, brought on by the unprecedented misuse of arcane rules and procedures by the Republican minority.

That's why AFJ is a leader of a coalition called Fix The Senate Now.  And that's why today we debut a new resource page on the urgent need for Senate rules reform.  The page sums up what's wrong, and links to  a set of crucial proposed reforms.

AFJ's Nan Aron on today's Supreme Court actions on DOMA and Prop. 8

Supreme Court can bend the arc of history toward justice

WASHINGTON, D.C.,  Dec. 7, 2012: — Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron issued the following statement concerning the Supreme Court’s decision Friday to hear cases on the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and on California’s Proposition 8.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear a group of cases in which the stakes could not be higher.  If the Court strikes down Section 3 of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), it will make millions of legally-married same-sex couples truly equal in the eyes of the federal government.  It will do the same for same-sex couples who want to marry in the future.

A ruling against Section 3 would send an important message: The nation’s highest court refuses to countenance discrimination.  But it also would have immediate, concrete benefits.

            A ruling against Section 3 will ensure married same-sex couples enjoy equal access to a huge range of benefits that the rest of us take for granted.  DOMA denies Social Security death benefits, spousal disability benefits and survivor benefits to same-sex spouses.  DOMA prevents same-sex spouses from taking family medical leave.  DOMA even can separate spouses of different nationalities. 

The stakes are every bit as high in the case involving California’s Proposition 8.  If the Supreme Court upholds the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional, it will restore the right to marry for same-sex couples in California and, perhaps, send an important signal to the rest of the nation.  It would be a decision for family values in the truest sense of the term.

                The last time the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on who can get married, it bent the arc of history toward justice, ruling that banning interracial marriage is unconstitutional.  Now the Court has the opportunity to bend the arc of history toward justice again, by ruling Section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional. 

                In 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that, “scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.”  In a nation in which not just political, but the most fundamental human questions can become judicial questions, today’s actions highlight once again the critical importance to American life of who sits on the United States Supreme Court.

For more on DOMA check out this excerpt from last night's AFJ-sponsored discussion in New York.

Our take on Mitch McConnell's "self-filibuster"

AFJ released this statement on a spectacle that was absurd even by U.S. Senate standards:

AFJ: McCONNELL “SELF-FILIBUSTER” ILLUSTRATES HOW GOP

TURNS IT INTO “WEAPON OF MASS OBSTRUCTION”

WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 7: The spectacle of the Minority Leader of the United States Senate filibustering his own bill perfectly illustrates the extent to which the filibuster has been abused for purely partisan purposes, according to the Alliance for Justice.

Yesterday, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) introduced a bill to allow the President to raise the federal debt ceiling on his own authority.  The idea was to show that Democrats didn’t have the votes to pass such a measure.  But when it turned out the Democrats did have the votes, McConnell was in a bind.  His only way out: filibuster his own bill.

“If we didn’t know better we’d think Sen. McConnell was moonlighting as a writer for The Daily Show or The Colbert Report,” said Nan Aron, President of the Alliance for Justice.  “But Sen. McConnell’s theater-of-the-absurd actually illustrates an extremely serious problem: the paralysis in the Senate caused by Republican abuse of the filibuster.

“The filibuster was intended to be used in extreme circumstances, where fundamental principles were at stake,” said Aron.  “But Senate Republicans have turned it into a weapon of mass obstruction to bring the business of the Senate to a halt. 

“Nowhere is this more apparent than in our federal courts.   As we document in our recent report, Senate Republicans repeatedly have abused the filibuster to block votes on nominees for federal judgeships – including noncontroversial nominees with broad bipartisan support.  That’s led to unconscionable delays and severe hardship for hundreds of thousands of Americans, forced to wait months, sometimes years to fight for their rights in court.

“That’s why it’s time to ring down the curtain on the theater of the absurd and enact serious reforms to Senate rules.”