Worst Senator in the World

[jasonxctf]

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) -- Sen. Sam Brownback, who wants to champion social conservatives in the presidential race, said Tuesday he wants a Senate panel to re-question a judicial nominee who attended a same-sex union ceremony.

 

Brownback, a Kansas Republican, said he wants Michigan state judge Janet Neff to testify about her role in the 2002 Massachusetts ceremony, her legal views on same-sex unions and her ability to be impartial if called upon to rule on such cases.

 

Neff's nomination to a federal district court is among a dozen or so now stalled in the Senate, a logjam in part due to Brownback's questions about Neff's attendance at a lesbian commitment ceremony. The Senate Judiciary Committee has already approved her nomination.

Neff was traveling outside the country and could not immediately be reached for comment, said Chris Bockheim, her judicial assistant.

 

Earlier this month, Brownback, a prominent opponent of gay marriage who is exploring a presidential run in 2008, said he would lift the hold he put on Neff's nomination if the judge agreed to withdraw from ruling on any court case involving the legality of same sex unions.

 

In Iowa on Tuesday to meet with GOP activists, Brownback said he wants only a chance to question Neff about her role in the 2002 ceremony. Brownback also wants a recorded vote in the Senate.

 

"I am not opposed to her getting a vote," Brownback said before a lunch with potential donors and supporters in Davenport. "I would like her to come back through committee so she can testify what took place, factually ... her legal views on same-sex marriage and her ability and willingness to be impartial."

 

Neff has said she attended the commitment ceremony as a friend of one of the two women, a longtime neighbor.

 

She insisted in an October 12 letter to Brownback that the ceremony had no legal effect and would not influence her ability to act fairly as a federal judge.

 

Brownback also has been criticized for his proposal that Neff be required to recuse herself from gay marriage cases. Legal scholars said such a deal would infringe on the separation of the legislative and judicial branches of government.

 

But Brownback said it was simply a last resort to put her nomination forward.

 

"If we don't testify on her views on same-sex marriage legally, then the only way I can see fit to do this is to have her recuse herself from a class of cases," Brownback said. "Then others stepped in and said, 'You can't do that.' Well, that's the only option I had at that late hour."

 

 

so let me get this straight, we are withholding federal judical nominee appointments (given under a Republican administration none the less) now because they were in attendance at their neighboor's committment ceremony???

[Heads22]

Brownback has no shot in Iowa anyways. I think Romney may do well in the state, however.

[NorthSideSox72]

Brownback has no shot period.

[Gregory Pratt]

Brownback is Bob Dole brought back to life.

[Rex Kickass]

Bob Dole was a pretty moderate Senator.

[Gregory Pratt]

Bob Dole tells the truth!

Bob Dole loves America!

 

(Love to whoever catches the reference.)

 

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Dole was moderate depending on the angle you look at him from. I always thought he was slimy and dishonest -- from his divorce of his first wife ("I want out") to his flip-flops and dishonesty about, oh, Medicare and his extreme opposition to the program in the sixties, his work against health care in the 1990s. Oh, he might not have been a Holy Holy or Grover Norquist, but damn if he wasn't a miserable man in his own right(-wing).

 

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(The reference at the beginning is to a passage from the book American Rhapsody. The best satire I've ever read of contemporary American politics.)

Edited December 21, 2006 by Gregory Pratt