[Mb-civic] Filibuster in P Town

[Mike Blaxill]

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2005/04/28/news/12784.shtml

Frist protest continues for third day

Regina Lee
Princetonian Staff Writer

    A student-led filibuster continued into its
third day today on the Frist North Lawn, drawing
more than 60 students to speak in protest of a
proposed congressional rule change that would
circumvent Democrats' efforts to block the
appointment of some of President Bush's judicial
nominees.

    The protest, which began at 11 a.m. Tuesday,
will last through this afternoon, event
organizers said.

    "What has been striking to all of us is the
outpouring of student support," said Asheesh
Siddique '07, who helped organize the event. "We
didn't think this [filibuster] would go beyond a
few hours."

    The contested proposal would declare the
current Senate filibuster — which calls for a
60-vote majority to override — unconstitutional
when used to block judicial nominees. Requiring
only a simple Senate majority to confirm Bush's
judicial nominees would eliminate the threat of a
Democratic filibuster.

    The Republican Party, which currently holds a
55-member majority in the Senate, could
foreseaably garner such support.

    Not all University students support the
protest.

    "It is almost, if not completely,
unprecedented for judicial nominees to be
filibustered," said Dylan Hogarty '06, president
of the College Republicans. "I don't think [the
Princeton students] are going to make much of a
difference."

    Other students said the filibuster is too
small to be effective.

    "The most successful protests are thus those
that involve a large number of participants," Ira
Leeds '06, publisher of The Princeton Tory, said
in an email. "If they had really wanted to engage
the campus in some sort of dialogue regarding the
Senate filibuster, I feel they could have found a
more substantive format for their event."

    Despite the occasional heckler and Tuesday's
brief confrontation with Public Safety over the
group's right to rally outside of Frist Campus
Center, there have been no other clashes, Josh
Weitz '97 said. Weitz, a postdoctoral student who
helped organized the demonstration, spent two
continuous hours reading from the U.S.
Constitution and reports on the judicial
nominees.

    Weitz said he is determined to bring
information about the "nuclear option" to the
undergraduate community because "what happens [in
the Senate] in the next couple of weeks may
determine our court system for the rest of our
generation."

    Many students also rallied throughout Tuesday
night to make a bolder statement.

    "We are willing to sacrifice our work and
comfort and actually stand up for what we believe
in," Matt Solomon '06 said.

    At about 2 a.m. Wednesday, it started to rain
so hard that protesters had to put away their
reading materials. Jeff Brown '06 spent his time
at the microphone reciting memorized lines from
Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and "A Winter's Tale," the
latter of which he performed last weekend. Fellow
cast members sat on the lawn to cheer him on.

    During the night, the protesters spoke to an
"interesting mix" of exhausted students leaving
Frist Campus Center and "a bunch of giddy drunk
people coming back from the street," Solomon
said.

    The filibuster effort will continue as long
as the student support lasts, he added.