Letters to the Editor
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Contact Senators - Phone, Fax, Email
Help support the filibuster by contacting one of the following Senators over the weekend. Remember, your voice counts.
The Three Democrats Voting For Alito:
Ben Nelson
Phone: (202) 224-6551 / (402) 441-4600
Fax: (202) 228-0012 / (402) 476-8753
Email: http://www.senate.gov/~bennelson/contact/email.cfm
Tim Johnson
Phone: (202) 224-5842 / (605) 226-3440 / (605) 341-3990 / (605) 332-8896
Fax: (202) 228-5765 / (605) 226-2439
Email: http://www.senate.gov/~johnson/emailform.cfm
Robert Byrd
Phone: (202) 224-3954 / (304) 342-5855
Fax: (202) 228-0002 / (304) 343-7144
Email: http://byrd.senate.gov/byrd_email.html
Our “Party Leader”:
Harry Reid
Phone: (202) 224-3542 / (702) 388-5020
Fax: (202) 224-7327 / (702) 388-5030
Email: http://reid.senate.gov/email_form.cfm
Democrats Not Confirmed Filibuster-ers:
Barack Obama
Phone: (202) 224-2854 / (312) 886-3506
Fax: (202) 228-4260 / (312) 886-3514
Email: http://obama.senate.gov/contact/contact.cfm?cat=legal
Mary Landrieu
Phone: (202) 224-5824 / (504) 589-2427
Fax: (202) 224-9735 / 504) 589-4023
Email: http://landrieu.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
Ken Salazar
Phone: (202) 224-5852 / (303) 455-7600
Fax: (202) 228-5036 / (303) 455-8851
Email: http://salazar.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm
Joe Biden
Phone: (202) 224-5042 / (302) 573-6345
Fax: (202) 224-0139 / (302) 573-6351
Email: http://biden.senate.gov/contact/emailjoe.cfm
Byron Dorgan
Phone: (202) 224-2551 / (701) 250-4618
Fax: (202) 224-1193 / (701) 250-4484
Email: senator@dorgan.senate.gov
Diane Feinstein
Phone: (202) 224-3841 / (415) 393-0707
Fax: (202) 228-3954 / (415) 393-0710
Email: http://feinstein.senate.gov/email.html
Evan Bayh
Phone: (202) 224-5623 / (317) 554-0750
Fax: (202) 228-1377 / (317) 554-0760
Email: http://bayh.senate.gov/LegForm.htm
Maria Cantwell
Phone: (202) 224-3441 / (206) 220-6400
Fax: (202) 228-0514 / (206) 220-6404
Email: http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact/
Kent Conrad
Phone: (202) 224-2043 / (701) 258-4648
Fax: (202) 224-7776 / (701) 258-1254
Email: http://conrad.senate.gov/webform.html
Blanche Lincoln
Phone: (202) 224-4843 / (501) 375-2993
Fax: (202) 228-1371 / (501) 375-7064
Email: http://lincoln.senate.gov/webform.html
Mark Pryor
Phone: (202) 224-2353 / (501) 324-6336
Fax: (202) 228-0908 / (501) 324-5320
Email: http://pryor.senate.gov/contact/
Frank Lautenberg
Phone: (202) 224-3224 / (973)-639-8700 / (856) 338-8922
Fax: (202) 228-4054 / (973) 639-8723 / Fax: (856) 338-8936
Email: http://lautenberg.senate.gov/webform.html?Email=Email+Senator+Lautenberg+Your+Comments+on+an+Issue
Bob Menendez
Phone: (202) 224-4744
Fax: (202) 228-2197
Email: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/mail/?id=395&type=CO&state=NJ
Jay Rockefeller
Phone: (202) 224-6472 / (304) 347-5372
Fax: (202) 224-7665 / (304) 347-5371
Email: senator@rockefeller.senate.gov
And Sympathetic Republicans:
Lincoln Chafee
Phone: (202) 224-2921 / (401) 453-5294
Fax: (202) 228-2853 / (401) 453-5085
Email: http://chafee.senate.gov/webform_original.htm
Susan Collins
Phone: (202) 224-2523 / (207) 945-0417
Fax: (202) 224-2693 / (207) 990-4604
Email: http://collins.senate.gov/public/continue.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorCollins.Email&CFID=48722893&CFTOKEN=55709294
Olympia Snowe (The ladies may have a uterus, just not a spine.)
Phone: (202) 224-5344 / (207) 874-0883
Fax: (202) 224-1946 / (207) 874-7631
Email: http://snowe.senate.gov/Webform.htm
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I give her credit
And I vote and live in California. I've never really gotten the whole problem with "flip-flopping". I don't respect people who stick to their guns just for the sake of doing so. I would prefer to vote for a person who is willing to take a stand, but is also willing to consider the alternatives to that position. It takes a lot more courage and brains to stand up in public and admit you were wrong than it does to stubbornly stick to your position when you find you are on the wrong side of the argument.
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Why Have a Debate?!?
I called Senators Boxer and Feinstein to urge them both to support a filibuster. I then asked why we're even having a public debate about issues such as abortion rights, torture, warrantless spying, equal rights, etc., when it seems our elected officials cannot even muster the political courage to use whatever tools are available to defeat such a radical, monumental appointment as this.
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Shoulda Been A No Brainer
Alito should have been shit-canned long ago, but the Democrats continue to play bean-bag. Why should Alito have been derailed?
Two (2) Reasons:
1. He's a liar. He lied to the Senate the last time he appeared before them. He promised he would recuse himself from certain cases if the Senate confirmed him. They did. He didn't keep his part of the bargain. Where I grew up we called that lying. The Democrats should have pounded him unmercifully for that.
2. His deference to presidential power is pathological. The Framers of the Constitution, having just kicked out a King, were anxious not to create another one, and so they placed with Congress the supreme authority of the people.
Alito virtually invented the totally bogus concept of "presidential commentary", the idea that a dissent by the president, penned as he signs legislation into law, should be given the same deference as "legislative intent" is more than just absurd. The Framers made plain that in legislative matters, Congress rules. Congress can pass a law, the president can veto it. Then Congress may, with a super-majority, override the Presidential veto and compel the President. If the President doesn't like a law and refuses to enforce it, Congress may, at its pleasure, remove the President. The president has no such power over Congress.
Either Alito does not understand this - in which case he's too freaking stupid to be on the Supreme Court, or he DOES understand, and he is so intellectually dishonest that he can argue Presidential findings are equal to legislative intent, all the while knowing it's a lie.
The American people could understand this argument. The Democrats were too stupid or lazy to cogently and compellingly lay it out for the public. Of course, even if they had the major media would have continued to focus on missing teens in Aruba or hijacked cruise ships, while Bush turns back the clock to 1648.
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I was told there would be no math...
It ain't about the math, Tim; it's about the fact that if this country stands for anything, it stands for NOT HAVING A KING. Supporting a filibuster on Alito's nomination represents the best, highest-profile means available to senators of any (or no) party affiliation of standing up against the massive, illegal, unconstitutional and bloody well unpatriotic unitary executive power grab going on in front of our very eyes. If the White House can ignore laws and deceive the other branches with impunity, the house of cards that is this delicate democracy comes crashing down in a heap - and a Supreme Court nominee who clearly supports that White House's "interpretation" of the power dynamics in American government must not be installed without a fight.
Will the filibuster stop Alito's nomination? Of course not. That's not the point. The point is that in two or five or ten or fifty years, when people ask who stood up against this despotic attempt to pervert everything America represents, the Democratic Party must, if it is worth a damn, be able to stand up proudly and say it did everything it could, even in a losing cause.
As for Feinstein, I'd like to think that my call yesterday, and the calls of dozens of my friends, family and other Californians, played some small part in her sudden spinal transplant - and that, my friend, is no small feat. Let us hope that the better angels of the Democrats' natures succeed in spurring them to be who they should be, who their constituents expect them to be, who their country needs them to be. Onward, friends. We ain't dead yet.