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The Human Needs Report is the Coalition on Human Needs' newsletter on national policy issues affecting low-income and vulnerable populations. It is published every other week while Congress is in session.
Article from the May 20 , 2005 edition of the CHN Human Needs Report: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) continued down the path of nuclear meltdown in the Senate Wednesday by calling up the nomination of Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla R. Owen to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Owen has a history of accepting campaign contributions from large corporations and then ruling in their favor -- and against families and consumers. Even U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has criticized her for "unconscionable" "judicial activism" ( http://media.pfaw.org/POwen_Nuclear_Talking_Points.pdf ). Debate began on Owen's nomination on Wednesday, May 18. Senator Frist could soon file a motion for cloture, to close debate on the nomination, which Democrats are expected to filibuster. At this point Senator Frist could use procedural tactics that Senator Lott (R-MS) originally dubbed the "nuclear option," to end the ability of senators to filibuster a judicial nomination. (For more information on the nuclear option, see the previous HNR article on the issue: http://www.chn.org/humanneeds/050429c.html ). Senate Democrats have threatened to respond to the nuclear option by slowing down the work of the Senate, partly by using rarely-utilized rules allowing them to place items on the body's agenda. According to Senator Schumer (D-NY) these items would include minimum wage legislation and others that are championed by the human needs community ( http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/19/filibuster.fight/index.html ). Democratic Senate Leader Reid (D-NV) has already invoked a rule to bar committee meetings while the full Senate is in session, which could foreshadow the tactics that will be used if the nuclear option is brought to fruition. Democrats have made clear that they do not intend to use procedures to hold up essential appropriations. A group of Senators, apparently without the official blessing of Leaders Frist and Reid, have been pursuing a compromise in which Democrats would allow a number of nominees to the floor in return for a promise to filibuster judicial nominations only in "extraordinary circumstances." Partly because of the vagueness of that language, the effort to reach compromise, led by Nelson (D-NE) and McCain (R-AZ), had not succeeded at HNR press time.
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