The Senate has just confirmed Priscilla Owen to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
The vote was 56-43. If I heard the clerk’s roll call correctly, the Democrats voting to confirm were Landrieu (LA) and Byrd (WV). The only Republican voting against confirmation was Chafee (RI). I believe that Daniel Inouye (D-HI), who did not participate in yesterday’s cloture vote, also did not participate in today’s vote.
Now on C-SPAN2: the nomination of John Bolton!
UPDATE: The roll call on Owen is here.
CORRECTION AND FURTHER UPDATE: The vote was actually 55 (not 56) to 43, as it turns out that Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) voted "Present," apparently in order to protect Sen. Inouye who was out of town and therefore did not vote.
Please share widely!
We had, I believe, 3 overrides earlier this month, in Westwood, all rejected by wide margins
There has been more success than one might think at getting override votes approved in recent years. Since fiscal 2000, there have been 644 separate override questions. 357 of these have passed. The problem is that of the winning override questions, exactly one was in a city – Newton in fiscal 2003 – a place that is certainly under less fiscal stress than other larger urban centers in the state. Of the 287 questions that failed, two were in cities: Northampton for this fiscal year and Worcester for fiscal 2000. The message here is that the cities are not even trying to get overrides passed – the general feeling is that most cities would not pass overrides.Of course, the need for overrides is related to state taxation levels – how much state revenue is available for local aid – and to the health care issues that we have been discussing. Much of the recent need for operating overrides has been driven in great part by rising health care costs. Those communities that don’t pass overrides are eating these costs in the form of reduced financial reserves and reduced services.(I got my information on overrides from the following link: http://www.dls.state.ma.us/mdmstuf/Prop2_LevyCap_RefVotes/overrides.xls)
A progressive friend with school age children in public school told me he intended to vote for the education over ride in his town but he found the tone of the supporters for the override to be elitist bordering on obnoxious. “If you don’t vote for the override you a heartless and evil.” We have raising home prices meaning higher evaluations meaning higher property taxes. Now people are asked to pay more for the education of spoiled overly prtoected kids, or to keep some unneeded lay about cops and firefighters who get good salaries, with great over time, great benefits and unbelievable guarenteed pensions.
If you don’t mind any shameless self promotion, I posted on the Harwich situation on my blog (linked on my name). I won’t re-post, feel free to jump over if interested.