I'm trying to figure out why Fox is reporting that the Souter Nomination needs one Judicary committee member from the 'opposing' party to support him/her in order to move the nomination out of committee and into a floor vote.
Last time I checked - Samual Alito moved to a floor vote without a single democrat in the judiciary committee voting for him
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Alito#... Alito's confirmation hearing was held from January 9 to January 13, 2006.
On January 24, his nomination was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 10-8 party line vote. Democratic Senators characterized Alito as a hard right conservative in the mold of a Clarence Thomas or Robert Bork. Alito professed reluctance to commit to any type of ideology, stating he would act as an impartial referee. On the abortion issue, he stated that he would look at that with an open mind but would not state how he would rule on Roe v. Wade if that issue were to come up before the court. Some pro-life activists, however, claim Alito's confirmation as a victory for their cause.
SO someone please tell me why Fox News is reporting this? Was there some change in the Judiciary nomination process since Alito that would basically fuck things up for whichever party was in charge?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/01... /
At first glance, with Democrats a hair away from a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, one would expect President Obama to have no trouble hand-picking a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter.
But in an ironic twist, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's switch to the Democratic Party this week could give Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee the upper hand in rejecting a nominee they find unacceptable.
That's because the Judiciary Committee, where Specter was the ranking minority member, requires the consent of at least one Republican to end debate and move a nominee to the full Senate for a vote."I think, in narrow terms, it could present a procedural problem at the committee level, unless the Democrats are going to change the rules of the committee midstream," William Jacobson, a professor of law at Cornell University, told FOXNews.com.
Mind you, perhaps since Alito's nomination someone made changes and I'm out of date on it; however, it's odd that only Faux News seems to be reporting this and nobody else.
Can someone tell me if I'm going crazy or Faux News is just full of crap?
