[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 62 (Thursday, May 12, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H3204]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        DEMOCRATS WILL FIGHT REPUBLICAN ABUSE OF POWER IN SENATE

  (Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, the congressional Republican abuses of 
power continue in the Senate where Senator Frist is preparing to change 
the Senate rules for the first time in 200 years.
  Senator Frist and Senate Republicans are waging an unprecedented 
political power grab. They are changing the rules in the middle of the 
game and attacking our historic system of checks and balances so they 
can ram through a small number of judicial nominees who otherwise 
cannot achieve consensus because of their poor record of protecting 
individual rights.
  Our House Democrats join our colleagues in the Senate committed to 
fight this Republican abuse of power. We will protect the role of the 
judiciary as the guardian of the rights of all Americans, assuring that 
all judges who are confirmed in the Federal courts be as intellectually 
honest and fair as possible, rather than ruling just on one side of one 
interest.
  Drunk with power, rewriting the rules is what has been happening in 
Washington the most in recent years. The House Republican leadership 
tried to weaken the House ethics rules to protect one of their own, and 
they failed. Let us not let the Senate do the same.

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