GOP Senators: Dems Left Us Out Of Loop On Sotomayor Timing
Uh oh. It looks like GOP Senators may make an issue out of the fact that they were kept out of the loop on today’s announcement of the date of the Sonia Sotomayor hearings.
Today, Senator Patrick Leahy, the chair of the Judiciary Committee, announced that Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings would begin on July 13th. Leahy said that the date would give Senators ample time to dissect Sotomayor’s record — a period comparable to the ones granted previous nominations by GOP administrations.
According to a GOP source familiar with the situation, however, GOP Senators on the committee, including ranking member Jeff Sessions, weren’t informed by Dems on the committee that a decision had been made, and only learned about it from Leahy’s announcement. The source says that Leahy made the timing decision unilaterally.
The source adds that it’s likely that Republican Senators will speak out about this fact, presumably to suggest that the committee wasn’t approaching the timing question in bipartisan fashion.
Dems, however, will likely respond that it’s Leahy’s prerogative, as committee chair, to make the decision unilaterally and to announce it as he sees fit.
At any rate, we may be hearing GOP Senators complaining about this soon enough.
Update: Sessions just spoke out about the timing gripe.
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Give me a break! The Republicans have absolutely studied her enough to go on TV to blast their phony concerns. This phony umbrage is not worth reporting.
Gerg – you know why there aren’t any comments here? This is boring, you’re boring me! Who cares that the GOP will whine – to the victor go the spoils. Who cares that Leahy could have consulted but didn’t – he’s been disagreeable since the dustup with Cheney.
More whining from GOOPers is not likely to do them much good politically, much less substantively.
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It just reinforces perceptions of the GOP as the Party of No. And whining about committee procedure is very much “inside baseball”. A real yawner for people living outside the Beltway. The subtext that will come across is just Waaannh!
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It’s kinda beside the point, but I wonder how much input Dems had in the timing of Roberts’s and Alito’s confirmation hearings?
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sbj, you’re impossible to please…I do a day of Palin antics and it’s superficial; I do this stuff and you say it’s boring…
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And Danp — worth knowing this stuff in advance, no?
Why didn’t the media report on it when the Repugs locked the Dems out of the room where legislation was laid out, didn’t give them notice of anything, kept holding votes at midnight – why wasn’t that a big deal? I distinctly remember when there was a fistfight between two congressmen in their 70s over just this kind of thing. The Repugs locked the room where a bill was laid out and wouldn’t even let the Dems read it before a vote.
I hate this double standard so damn much -
Hey – I bitched about Palin, I confess – and you’re hardly the worst on that account, Greg. But this is a story worth posting on, sbj.
@Greg: Just joking! And whoa – I didn’t say the Palin stuff was superficial (although I think you’re onto something there). I’m with DanP and jzap, oddly enough.
GOP Senators complaining about something.
What a surprise.
Pat Leahy and Jeff Sessions: boring
George HW Bush at wife’s 84th birthday?
http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/09/george-h-w-bush-bikini-lapdance/
… priceless!
Only boring people get bored.
“# Runfastandwin | June 9th, 2009 at 05:34 pm
Only boring people get bored.”
O word!
Criticism of Sotomayor began to surface even before Sotomayor was formally notified with some critics warning against Obama even considering her. The usual talking point litany of charges was out within hours. Today, the GOP claims it needs enough time to review over 3,000 cases in which she has had a part. Talking Points Memo notes that if they used the same amount of days given in advance of Roberts hearings and the cases he had participated in the math works out to hearings on Sotomayor sometime in 2011…literally.
This is all a crock. With the speed of the Internet today, critics of all stripes, you can be sure, have already been through every one of those 3,000 plus cases with a fine tooth comb. Sotomayor has undoubtedly made enemies over the years and you can be sure that anyone with an axe to grind has already been shoveling whatever “mud” they can think of directly into GOP offices in an effort to be helpful. They’ll have all the time they need to search for dirt…..the fact that all they can ***** about so far is her “temperament” or concerns about “empathy” pretty much tell you how little they have found.
Maybe we can haz Pat Leahy for Majority Leader!?
Leahy did the right thing. Ignore irrelevant behavior. The Republicans are silly people behaving very silly.
This was *not* a surprise. I heard Leahy say on NPR days ago that the hearings would begin the week of the 13th or the week of the 20th.
Oh. Wait. He said it on NPR. No wonder the GOP is crying foul.
I have to say that your blog is pretty cool. If you could add a few more videos I would really appreciate it!