Because they’re not extremists. Here’s Wendy Long today in the Philly Inquirer:
When it comes to judges, Democrat Sens. Chuck Schumer, Ted Kennedy, Pat Leahy, John Kerry, John Edwards, Harry Reid and company just won’t budge.
Not even for a nonpartisan compromise offered by Majority Leader Bill Frist that would allow 100 hours of debate on each judge and guarantee votes on every judicial nominee in the future, whether nominated by a Republican or Democrat President, and regardless of what party controls the Senate. The Democrats still refuse to vote on President Bush’s most important and highly qualified nominees to the federal courts of appeal.
Why? They claim it’s because these judges, such as Justice Priscilla Owen of Texas and Justice Janice Rogers Brown of California, are “extreme.”
If that were true, you can count on it: Left-wing interest groups and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee would be clamoring for a vote; they’d want Republicans on record as having supported such “extremists” in the next election cycle. Surely in 100 hours they could expose these judges as extremists, get the support of mainstream America, and send the Republicans packing.
Truth is, Democrats are hiding from a debate, and hiding from a vote, precisely because these highly qualified judges are the mainstream. ..