Centerfield

JD:

Democrats won at the local level in heavily Republican areas throughout the US this past election cycle.

In Colorado, Democrats took the state legislature for the first time since the 1970s. Democrats won the state senate in Montana and also took the governership. It's possible that they will win the House depending upon the outcome of an election that at last count was tied.

Overall, Democrats took power in seven legislatures and have a tie in Iowa.

The issue might better be framed by asking..."What did the GOP do wrong at the state level?" rather than blaming Democrats for not running enough centrists.

Democrats ran centrists at the national level and lost. It had nothing to do with the issues. It had to do with perception...which is ground into the brains of people day in and day out by the conservative media.

That's a good point about Thomas and Scalia not shifting the balance, so why filibuster.

Personally, I'm more convinced than ever that Thomas was guilty of sexually harassing Anita Hill, as Hill's chief detractor, David Brock, has now recanted. I suspect he committed perjury to get on the Supreme Court. I don't think he should be rewarded by becoming Chief Justice. However, for purely political reasons, it might be better for the Democrats to let that one go. Thomas as Chief Justice could be a symbol of what's wrong with GOP rule.

That was a very interesting and informative article. I never really knew the primary functions of the chief justice. I also wondered what the democrats had to gain from filibustering a choice for chief justice when it didn't change the overall voting pattern of the court. The strategy presented makes sense to me, but as a Democrat I can assure you it probably won't fly.

Carla: What centrist did the Democrats run at the national level? You can't possibly mean Kerry. And Edwards was virtually invisible once he joined the ticket.

Carla, don't you mean to say that it might be fair to ask the GOP what they did wrong on the state level at the same time as it is even still very fair to ask the democrats what they did wrong AGAIN at the national level?

Nice article, I'm glad to see some good involved original content here.

The listed power #2 is slightly incorrect, because the chief justice only assigns the writer if he voted with the majority. If he votes with the minority, then the most senior judge on the majority does the assigning.

I think you understated how important this power can be. Burger used to shift his vote if he was losing just to retain this assignment power, though it meant going against his original position. This way he could keep opinion writing power in controversial race/criminal/free speech cases out of the hands of his ideological enemies. He'd author the unanimous opinions himself. If he thought an opinion was really lame he'd give it to his enemies. Rehnquist was evenhanded instead of manipulative, but the Burger option is still entirely available for his successor...

You say the assignment power has little power because of the large number of dissenting and concurring-in-part opinions written these days. But these opinions have no governing force whatsoever, while the assigned majority opinion has 100% governing force.

The Chief Justice also has some additional powers that can strongly influence the court's agenda -- the authority to send around initial cases for discussion, and the power to introduce and offer the first vote at case conferences.

Kerry was very much a moderate candidate. He was hardly the far lefty that Bush successfully portrayed him.

Just like McCain was never the complete whackjob that the Bush successfully portrayed him.

Interesting pattern, tho. Edwards was interestingly only invisible to the national media...even though I saw local level reports of events he did all the time. They frankly just weren't covered by the nationals.

Carla;
Granted we all have are particular bias but, trying to be as objective as possible, I don't think Kerry was and I didn't hear many commentators describe him as a moderate Democrat or centrist Democratic. I don't have a problem calling someone a liberal Democrat any more than calling someone a conservative Republican.

Now he may have run, attempting to portray himself as a moderate Democrat but I don't think his Senate voting record was consistent with that. And finally and not to re-hash the election, I don't think he lost because he was a "liberal".

Susan,

True, the chief only appoints the Court's author if he sides with the Court. I made some simplifications for a lay audience.

My point about the concurring opinions--and that's where the meat of my point lies--is that these justices have shown a marked willingness to make their individual views known, regardless of what the Court opinion says. I haven't counted, but I suspect a statistical review would show that there have been more multiple opinions per case since Justice Breyer's appointment than under the Burger Court. And while the Court opinion is the only one that creates binding authority, it only creates binding authority on the holdings joined in by a majority of the justices. Every justice, except possibly Ginsburg and to a lesser Souter (who join in the concurring opinions of others rather than write their own), has been willing to write concurring opinions laying out their own views and declining to join in at least one part of the Court opinion. So my point is, these justices have gotten into the habit under Rehnquist of writing for themselves, and they'll continue to do so whoever the next chief is. Therefore, whomever the new chief assigns to write the Court opinion, just because there's a weakness in that justice's justification doesn't mean that the justice's Court opinion will translate into binding precedent.

Of the lesser powers I omitted, I don't think they're more influential on these justices than setting the circuit assignments. These are some strong-willed individuals, and I don't think the chief's framing of the case in conference is going to be intimidating. That's going to be equally true if the new chief is an insider--whom they other 7 all know--or an outsider--whom the 8 don't know but who has less experience with the recent inner-workings.

The point overall is that if the president nominates the next chief from the current associate justices, there's no compelling reason to waste the political capital to filibuster the nomination.

(There's no guarantee that the president will do so, obviously. If the president opts out of a double confirmation for a Rehnquist vacancy, that's a different story.)

Carla:

What Chris said.

Kerry may have campaigned as a moderate but there is very little in his record to indicate he actually is one.

He publicly stated Roe v Wade was a litmus test for his potential court appointments. I wouldn't call that moderate.

I still voted for him though, because I'm a liberal on many issues. I expected a President Kerry would have been more liberal than candidate Kerry. That's probably one reason he lost.

Tim:

I don't know what record you were looking at..but Kerry's overall Senate record is very moderate. I think Kerry actually campaigned to the grassroots as much more liberal than he really was. The "Roe" comment is indicative of that.

What JD said. Now, if only Reid were that smart. My impression of Reid is that he's no longer a centrist (Rove has been here...)

Kerry's overall Senate record is very moderate.

Compared to what and whom?

To say Kerry is moderate... how many Senators are to the left of JFK?

Kerry was the most liberal Senator. Whatever spin partisans may embrace, it is hard to paint over certain facts.

A man cannot be a moderate if he has no peers to his left.

Kerry was the most liberal Senator.

I wouldn't go quite that far. He's been painted as more liberal than Teddy Kennedy or Barbara Boxer, for example, but that's only true through a very selective choice of criteria and ratings periods. And Kennedy's had over forty years to earn his rating.

But being less liberal than Mark Dayton or Paul Sarbanes doesn't exactly make him a moderate, either. He's a liberal, and a consistent one. The only place he's shown any consistent moderate leanings is on foreign policy, and even that depends on your definition of moderate.

It just seems to me that whenever you have a balance of power like we currently do, the minority party will do very little to make life simpler for the majority party. I think that if the tables were turned, and Democrats were in the majority, Republicans would be trying to throw sand into the gears too--that seems to be the nature of American politics.

I don't know if it's realistic to expect Democrats to quit saying no. I think groups change very slowly. I think the only way we're going to see a shift is if the voter deliberately chooses to elevate those *individual* centrist voices to the positions of power and authority and get rid of the people who can't seem to think outside of the party box. Until that happens, I don't think we'll see the tiger change its stripes.

Here's something I found about how moderate Kerry is from frontpagemag:

According to Congressional Quarterly , over the course of Kerry's Senate career, he has sided with Kennedy fully 94 percent of the time for key votes. In a number of different years – 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1998, 1999, and 2001 – that figure stood at 100 percent. Kerry's lifetime Vote Rating from the leftist group Americans For Democratic Action (ADA) is 93 percent. Senator Kennedy's ADA rating is a slightly lower 88 percent; that is, a avowedly leftist group states that John Kerry's voting record is to the Left of Ted Kennedy's. By contrast, Kerry's lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union (ACU) stands at just 5 percent – the third lowest figure in the entire Senate, higher only than the ACU ratings for Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer. The ACU ratings for some other notable Democrats are: 13 percent apiece for Richard Gephardt, Hillary Clinton, and Tom Daschle; 14 percent for John Edwards; 15 percent for Dennis Kucinich; and 19 percent for Joe Lieberman. Senator John Breaux, one of the upper chamber's few moderate Democrats, has a 46 percent ACU rating.

The notion that such numerical ratings have much meaning is laughable. Why would anyone with an ounce of sense think one's subjective views on political issues would be quantifiable?

And I don't care which politician is being rated or which group is doing the ratings. Give me a coherent statement of your views on the major issues, thanks, and I'll take it from there.

I despise these sorts of attempts at pre-emptive disqualification. The way they such ratings are too often used is to suggest you shouldn't consider the actual views of a person because of their rating. I refuse to give an ounce of credence to bogus report cards cooked up by biased interest groups from either side.

I'd much rather decide whether someone is capable of insight and good ideas based on actual statements of their views.

But I can't believe I let myself get dragged into this. Kerry lost. He's over. Let's let it go. Last one out turn off the lights.

It's amazing where a post about Supreme Court nominee strategy can go. I'm still not convinced I understand how Democratic pickups of state legislatures or John Kerry came into play on this post. There's more about Kerry here than the judicial branch.

The notion that such numerical ratings have much meaning is laughable. Why would anyone with an ounce of sense think one's subjective views on political issues would be quantifiable?

And I don't care which politician is being rated or which group is doing the ratings. Give me a coherent statement of your views on the major issues, thanks, and I'll take it from there.

The problem being that politicians statements of their views on the major issues, often don't match with their actual votes. It can be a lot more revealing to look at a politician's voting patterns than to listen to their nuanced, focus group tested speeches. Even more so in the case of Senator Kerry, who was legendary for claiming both sides of an issue, and campaigning on positions that contradicted his voting record.

Is a Senator's subjective view on an issue quantifiable? Votes are quantifiable.

As one example issue, Kerry voted in favor of partial birth abortion all 3 times he was able to vote on the issue. That is a quantification, 3 out of 3. The national right to life committee gives him a Zero rating, while the national abortion and reproductive rights committee gives him 100 percent rating year after year. From these statistics a person will not learn everything about Kerry's beliefs and reasoning on the issue, but they might learn a valid and different perspective on him than they got from his speeches. There is no way that the absolute legality of partial birth abortion is a centrist or moderate position in this country, if polls mean anything. In fact you could even call it an extremist position. So the 3 out of 3 vote quantification helps us partially assess whether Kerry is a moderate, though that's just one issue of many.

The ratings have big limitations, since there are all sorts of reasons a Senator will vote against a bill that is an ideological fit -- bad riders, doesn't go far enough, vote trading or pressuring, or heavy handed party line discipline. It's also really debatable how a particular bill fits in a rating. Still, they can be useful in getting a sense of where a person stands ideologically, especially when compiled over many years and compared against peers. In some ratings you can click to see a description of each bill, how they voted, and how that vote influenced the rating. Often I'm surprised to study these candidate voting record details to see how different they are from impressions I had of them based on media coverage and speeches.

In this discussion, the ratings were brought up simply to help review whether Kerry was a centrist moderate.

Both Conservative and Liberal groups alike rate Kerry among the topmost liberal Senators. Is that relevant in deciding if Kerry is a centrist moderate?

Half of the many years Kerry was in the Senate, he cast 100% of his votes the same way Kennedy did. Is that relevant in deciding if Kerry is a centrist moderate?

It's not as good as studying the details at length, but it's great and revealing as a quick starting point.

Susan, I wholeheartedly agree with you that actual votes have meaning, and I think there's worth in examining actual votes. For example, if you were able to identify actual cases were the votes were about a specific topic and actually concerned something substantive (as opposed to procedural), then you're talking about something that's much closer to actual information. I think your case for his position on abortion (where you talk about his 3 votes) is solidly indicative, but even there not entirely indicative since I don't know what the actual bill purported to do or change. We are all familiar with bills that have titles and descriptions that fail to represent the reality of what they are doing. In the casae of the abortion bills, I have no doubt that they boil down to a difference of opinion about one or two specific provisions. My sense is that supporters of the ban want to make PBAs non-existent (and often deny that there's any such thing as a medical neccessity for them), some congresscritters want to make them rare, with reasonable but strict exceptions for medical necessity, and others want to continue to allow them with few real restrictions by allowing any medical necessity clause to be written vaguely enough to allow anyone who really wants a PBA to get one with a note from their doctor.

I couldn't agree more with the "watch what they do, not what they say" idea, as long as you are willing to get into the actual details of what they are doing, and not some abstract single number score that's supposed to represent what they do. That's just the way I approach things in order to inoculate myself from partisan attempts to sway my opinion.

So the way I respond to anything like "senator A voted with Senator Kennedy 100% of the time in year X" is that I simply notice that it doesn't include enough information for me to decide whether that represents anything objectionable or not. (It might, but I can't tell, and I simply refuse to jump to the conclusion I'm being invited to jump to, especially not when i have reason to think the source has mixed motives.) I'd notice that don't know if Senator A actually voted against anything I would have supported, and I also don't know why he voted the way he did.

You are right that the ratings you mention might be somewhat useful as a quick starting point. The problem is that they are often used as an endpoint, like I said, as a plausible excuse for pre-emptive disqualification.

The exceptions that you note at such length to my statement are ones that I already considered before posting, and in fact are exactly the reason why I said "the notion that such ratings have much meaning is laughable" instead of saying "the notion that such ratings have any meaning is laughable. You might think I'm making this up to cover my tracks, but I'm not. I very intentionally said "much" instead of "any" in order to avoid a post that was 3 or 4 paragraphs longer. I try to be careful about declaring absolutes, especially when i've though about something at length and am well aware of expcetions, special cases, and other details. If it felt like I was calling you out when i said "laughable,' then it's my bad, but I truly find such ratings to be laughably insufficient.

JD;

It's amazing where a post about Supreme Court nominee strategy can go. I'm still not convinced I understand how Democratic pickups of state legislatures or John Kerry came into play on this post. There's more about Kerry here than the judicial branch.

We did drift a bit but I think perception of where the center is and who's close to it and who's far away from it will have significant impact on the judicial nominees. If the majority of the political spectrum can't agree on where that center point is then we're going to have a hellava time agreeing on the "moderate judicial nominees"

I don't think moderate means the same thing when describing the judicial branch. Or it shouldn't anyway.

http://www.factcheck.org/article284.html

To call Kerry the "most liberal man in the Senate" based on a single year's rating is simply incorrect, however. Over his entire career, the Journal rates Kerry the 11th most liberal Senator. It's doubtful that Kerry would have qualified for the "most liberal" label even during his first Senate term, when was rated #1 for three of the six years: 1986, 1988, and 1990. In each of those years Kerry actually tied for the "most liberal" rating, sharing it with as many as five other senators.

Or is he 22nd? Or 478th?

Other analyses put Kerry farther down the list of liberals. Political science professor Keith T. Poole analyzed 379 roll call votes from 2003 (essentially all votes except those that were unanimous or nearly so). Poole rated 21 senators more liberal, and had Kerry tied with six others for the next place. Based on that, Kerry tied for number 24-1/2.

Poole has been using his method for years. In an analysis of House and Senate voting from 1937-2002, Kerry ranked 478th most liberal out of 3,320 persons who have served in Congress during that time.

Poole concluded that Kerry is "a bit" more liberal than the typical Democratic House or Senate member over the past seven decades, but not an "extreme" liberal.