Emergency Petition – Save our Courts
Please sign emergency petition to save our courts – MoveOn PAC has created an emergency petition to stop the “nuclear option,” the far right wing’s plan to seize absolute power to stack our courts. Starting Monday, the petition will be delivered straight to Congress every three hours until the final vote, and many of our comments will be read aloud on the Senate floor.
Please sign right now at:
http://www.moveonpac.org/nuclear
Why is this an emergency?
This Tuesday, the Senate will vote on Republican Leader Bill Frist’s “nuclear option” to break the rules of the Senate and give the Republican Party absolute control over appointing federal judges. For 200 years the minority’s right to filibuster has kept our courts fair, by making sure that federal judges needed to get at least some support from both sides of the aisle before they were given life time appointments. Personally, I would like to see a mandatory 2/3 majority vote to recommend judicial nominees – that would help to ensure that there was enough common ground to serve the needs of all Americans. However, the immediate need is to preserve what little procedure there is to reject ideologues.
If Frist eliminates the filibuster, his next step would be to force far right partisan judges onto the powerful U.S. Courts of Appeals. The real targets, however, are the four seats on the Supreme Court likely to become vacant in the next four years. With that much power on the Supreme Court, the far right could strike down decades of progress on labor rights, environmental protections, reproductive rights, and privacy.
The “nuclear option” will live or die by a final vote, probably on Tuesday, and the vote is still way too close to call. There are at least 6 moderate Republicans still on the fence and only 3 more votes needed to win. If we can get enough of our voices into congress and into the streets in the next 72 hours, we can still save our courts.
Please take a minute to join me and sign the emergency petition today.
Besides, Bush cannot say “nuclear”