When you call Landrieu, remind her of when she showed a backbone!

[beaconess]

From the Congressional Record, November 12, 2003 - during the marathon floor debate on the filibuster of appellate court judges:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r108:3:./temp/~r108lq8HeL:e183199:

Ms. LANDRIEU. I object. I know the distinguished chairman has been on the floor for a while making some truly offensive statements to colleagues on this side of the aisle that, in my opinion, are beneath the dignity of the committee on which he serves as chair. I ask the chairman if he recognizes the number on this chart. Could he state for the record what it is.

Mr. HATCH. I don't recognize the number. However, I do recognize the argument.

Ms. LANDRIEU. The Senator from Utah----

Mr. HATCH. Let me answer the question, if I may.

Ms. LANDRIEU. The distinguished Senator from Utah has answered the question.

Mr. HATCH. May I please finish?

Ms. LANDRIEU. He has answered my question. He said he didn't know what the number was. I would like to explain to him and to the other Members.

Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield ?

Ms. LANDRIEU. No, I will not. The number is 98 percent----

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Senators will address other Senators through the Chair.

Ms. LANDRIEU. The number the distinguished Senator from Utah did not recognize--I don't know why he would not recognize it since he is chairman of the committee, but he says he doesn't recognize it. The number is 98. Ninety-eight percent of the judges that were sent to this Senate by President Bush we have approved--98 percent. There are not many people in America, not white people, or black people, or Spanish people, or women, or men, who think the Senate should approve 100 percent of any President's nominees. It is beyond the realm of reason, particularly a President who did not win the popular vote.

Earlier in the debate, the chairman, who also doesn't recognize this number, this 98 percent, also fails to recognize the numbers in the last election. The numbers of the last election were Bush 50,456,169; Gore 50,996,116. So 500,000 more people voted for Vice President Gore in the popular vote than President Bush. He won by a handful of electoral votes in Florida, and we know that. The Court decided it. I am not complaining about it, but numbers are important. Let me tell you another number----

Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Ms. LANDRIEU. I will not.

Mr. REID. Regular order.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I will not yield for a question.

Another number is 63. I want the public who is watching this--and I think a lot of people are watching this, and I am glad because this is what the next election is going to be about, and I am very excited to help lead this fight. Sixty-three nominees were blocked. It wasn't an open filibuster . It wasn't debated in the open, like tonight where there are no secrets and we can all speak about what we believe. This was done in secret, and not by many Senators who represent millions of people, but maybe by one Senator who just decided he or she didn't like the nominee, and so they would not sign the slip.

The chairman of the committee reigns over this. He understands this number 63. They didn't even have the decency of getting a vote or a hearing in committee because the chairman from Utah had a system in place that blocked them.

Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield ?

Ms. LANDRIEU. No, I will not yield .

Mr. HATCH. I have a question.

Mr. REID. Regular order, Mr. President.

Mr. HATCH. I object to that, Mr. President.

Mr. REID. How rude that is.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana has the floor.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Thank you, Mr. President. I will not yield the floor, and we are not going to yield this point.

Technically, the majority is correct that there has not been a technical filibuster successfully completed. But there have been filibusters on this floor that have been tried, but they weren't strong enough to stand up to them because their arguments weren't strong enough. The only way a filibuster can survive is if the arguments and the truth is strong enough to stand up to lies. That is the only way a filibuster survives. That is why this filibuster survives, because the truth is always stronger than a lie.

This 63 people never could come out of committee. I am not even going to go into that. I am going to talk about something else.

How much time do I have remaining?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 24 1/2 minutes.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Good. I am going to take every one of them.

I want to tell the Republican majority something quite simple. This country, no matter your best efforts, will not be divided. No matter your vicious rhetoric about Protestants and Catholics and blacks and whites and Hispanics and women, we refuse to be divided. In a time of war, which we are in, when the country is under assault and we have men and women dying in Iraq, it is the height of disrespect and un-Americanism to come to this great floor and talk about the pettiness and say this woman Senator, who has spent 25 years in public office, and every woman who has ever served, that there is something wrong if I don't want a woman as a judge or I don't want African Americans to be here.

The Senator from Utah must forget where I am from. I would like to remind him where I am from. I am going to fight for Louisiana. In the 63 years before Rosa Parks decided to sit down in her seat because her feet were so tired she could not move, a man named Homer Plessy decided he would get on a rail car that was entitled ``whites only.''

He got on it in New Orleans, my hometown. He rode on the train and he knew he would be arrested. But a group of lawyers, African-American free men of color, had decided that he would be the right one. Why? Because he was white enough to pass, to get on the train, and black enough to be arrested. And that is exactly what happened.

Forty years before the Civil Rights Act, Plessy rode that train and the great movement began to free people who had been slaves for 300 years.

I have to sit in the Senate Chamber and listen to the Republican majority argue that, in the whole country, they can't find a better African-American woman than this Janice Rogers Brown to serve on the bench, to hold up Rosa Parks, to honor the work of Louis Martinet, and to honor the memory of Plessy. The only person they can find to serve on the bench is a woman who says--and I want to read what she says so the people in this country can just decide for themselves. Don't listen to all the technical parts. I am just going to read to you what the woman said and you decide for yourself if you think this is mainstream or not:

Some things are apparent. When government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is families under siege, war in the streets, the precipitous decline of the rule of law, the rapid rise of corruption, the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible.

What do you think Rosa Parks thought when the Federal judge came down to Alabama and government intruded and said: Lady, you don't have to suffer anymore. You think that Rosa Parks thought that government was bad?

Let me go on to say what this mainstream woman thinks of all the grandparents in the United States.


"My grandparents' generation thought being on the Government dole was disgraceful, a blight on the family honor. Today's senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren, because they have a right to get as much ``free stuff'' as the political system will permit them to extract."


Excuse me, but on behalf of all the grandparents I represent, this is an insult to every single one of them who raised their children, and then when some of their children got into trouble, raise the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren on their Social Security paychecks of $672 a month, which the Republican side refuses to raise, and a minimum wage which is $5.50, which they won't raise, and you are asking me to put a woman on the court that insults the grandparents of Louisiana? Take your dossier and go somewhere else.

Now, if these people are in the mainstream, then I don't know what mainstream we are talking about, because it is not mainstream in Louisiana. That is what this debate is about.

The Senate Democrats didn't want to have this filibuster . We are made to have this filibuster because the Republicans on that side think they can divide the country and split us up and cause trouble. I will tell you what people at home want. We are in a war. They want us to be united and fight together. But they have us fighting against Catholic, Protestant, rich, poor, young and old. It is a disgrace, and it is not the Democrats fault. It is the Republican majority.

I will just say this. I know the men and women who serve over there and individually they are fine. But, boy, collectively they can sure get themselves up into a lather. The country deserves better. The people want better.

We have an Energy bill to pass; we have appropriations bills to pass; I have 400,000 veterans in my State who are looking for help, and they turn on the television to see the chairman from Utah saying something about the women in the Senate don't want women on the bench, and we don't want Hispanics on the bench, and we don't want African Americans on the bench? Whoever heard of such ridiculousness?

I beg this body, let's stay on the facts. The facts are that we have approved 98 percent of President Bush's nominees. We have rejected people such as Janice Rogers Brown, and no matter how many times they bring her up, she will be rejected because she makes statements like this that are an insult. She is not going anywhere. We will vote on her 100 times. She will never get on the bench. Whether or not we have a vote on her, she is not going to get on the bench.

[ClintonTyree]

1. After the way the BFEE is treating her State.........

in the aftermath of Katrina, you wouldn't think there would be a shred of doubt in her mind which way to vote.

[skylarmae]

2. Landrieu's office line busy, busy

maybe this time we can get thru to her (in more ways than one).

[samhsarah]

3. Remember when...