{"id":4863,"date":"2005-08-01T11:16:26","date_gmt":"2005-08-01T15:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4863.html"},"modified":"2005-08-01T11:16:26","modified_gmt":"2005-08-01T15:16:26","slug":"the-senate-gop-is-united-behind-roberts-isnt-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-senate-gop-is-united-behind-roberts-isnt-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Senate GOP is united behind Roberts, isn’t it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part of the Dems’ problem with taking on John Roberts’ Supreme Court nomination is basic arithmetic. We have 45 seats, the Republicans have 55. Even if the Dem caucus was united in opposition (and it’s not) to Roberts, Dems would also need six Republicans to break party ranks. Since no reasonable person believes that’s possible, discussion has shifted away from whether he’ll be confirmed to how big the margin will be.<\/p>\n

Indeed, in this context, there are ample questions about how various Dems will react. Will centrist Dems up for re-election be extra supportive (Conrad, both Nelsons)? Will presidential aspirants take a hard line against Roberts (Clinton, Bayh, Feingold)?<\/p>\n

But there’s another side to this that’s gone largely unmentioned. What about the endangered species of Capitol Hill — the moderate Republicans? Roll Call reported today<\/a> that their votes are not a foregone conclusion.<\/p>\n

Senate Republicans who support abortion rights are walking a fine line on the question of whether to support John Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court. <\/p>\n

Centrist Republican Senators are caught between their desire to keep abortion legal in the United States — a goal that could be hampered if Roberts is as willing to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision as some of his supporters believe he is — and loyalty to their party. <\/p>\n

While many left-leaning abortion-rights groups instantly came out against Roberts, many Republican abortion-rights supporters, such as Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Lincoln Chafee (R.I.), have been quietly consulting with GOP abortion-rights groups and weighing how much to support Democrats in their quest to secure the release of documents relating to Roberts’ tenure in the solicitor general’s office of the first Bush administration. <\/p>\n

“I’ve talked with several groups, and they’ll be sharing information with me,” Snowe said. “They’re examining his record, looking at some of the cases.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I appreciate their hesitation. To their credit, these handful of moderates have not embraced Roberts’ nomination publicly and seem to have some appreciation for the fact that he disagrees with them on many critical legal issues.<\/p>\n

But, really, when was the last time these moderates didn’t<\/i> cave to party pressure on a nomination? When Janice Rogers Brown — who, for my money, remains the single worst of Bush’s nominees — came to the floor, not even one<\/a> Republican voted against her. Not Snowe, not Collins, not Chafee, not Specter.<\/p>\n

These guys are saying the right things now, promising a thorough review, backing Dem requests for more document production, thinking twice before backing a nominee that will vote to undo so much of what they claim to care about. But in the end, I suspect, they’ll fold. They always do.
\n
\nRepublican Majority for Choice suggests otherwise.<\/p>\n

“If there was something much more revealing about his position [on Roe], I think he could be in jeopardy. There is a strong group of Republicans that do not want to see Roe v. Wade overturned,” [Jennifer Stockman, national co-chairwoman of the Republican Majority for Choice] said. “If it became apparent that he wants so-called life issues to go back to the states, I do think that would cause an uproar” with centrist Republicans. <\/p>\n

That’s why the Republican Majority for Choice supports efforts, primarily by Senate Democrats, to get the White House to release Roberts’ papers from the first Bush administration, Stockman said. <\/p>\n

“We’re trying to get as much information as possible,” she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Question for moderates: what will you do with this information once you see it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part of the Dems’ problem with taking on John Roberts’ Supreme Court nomination is basic arithmetic. We have 45 seats, the Republicans have 55. Even if the Dem caucus was united in opposition (and it’s not) to Roberts, Dems would also need six Republicans to break party ranks. Since no reasonable person believes that’s possible, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}