April 25, 2005

Reid Actuality: Democrats Ready To Focus On America's Real Priorities

Washington, DC – The Senate Democratic Communications Center released the following actuality featuring Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid stating if Republicans break the rules and employ the “Nuclear Option”, Democrats will use the rules to bring to the floor bills that focus on America’s real priorities.

Actuality is available for download at:
http://democrats.gov/actualities/reid/reid050421.mp3

The text of Senator Reid’s actuality follows:

Americans across the country are worried about a lot of things right now. Gas prices…The heath of their loved ones…Their kids’ performance in school.

So why is the priority number one for Senate Republicans? Doing away with the last check in Washington that prevents President Bush, Senator Frist and Tom Delay from stacking the courts with radical judges that have poor records on protecting individual rights and constitutional liberties.

After 205 judicial confirmations, the highest percentage of any president in modern times, Republicans are angry that 10 of their most radical, out-of-step judges were turned down.

So, they want to break the rules to get what they want. This isn’t just about these 10 judges. It’s also about the Supreme Court.

If Republicans are successful at abusing their power and changing the rules in the middle of the game, America will have no power to stop a handful of radical right-wing Republicans from steamrolling our system of checks and balances and stacking the courts.

Just this week Tom DeLay launched a bizarre attack on Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy for his decisions and for his use of the Internet.

Even Justice Kennedy, a conservative Republican appointee of President Ronald Reagan, is too moderate for the radical right-wing of the Republican Party.

Even though seven of the nine current Supreme Court Justices were appointed by Republican Presidents, the right-wing wants to remake the Court in its own image.

They want to clear the path for President Bush to appoint Justices who will not protect the right to privacy or the separation of church and state."

Abusing power is not what the American people sent us to Washington to do.

We need to address real priorities instead -- fight for relief at the gas pump, stronger schools and lower health care costs for America’s families.

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