A modest proposal

Reading Captain Ed's comments on the Alito hearings reminded me of an idea that's been rattling around in my head.

It reminds me of the Lloyd Bentsen moment in the VP debate in 1988 with Dan Quayle, when the VP nominee told the eventual VP that he was no John Kennedy. The difference in this case was that Teddy didn't have the guts to face Aldisert, having fled the scene when these witnesses came to the bench -- like almost all of his Democratic colleagues.

And

When what should be a simple confirmation process reduces family members to tears, it shows that one party has degenerated into a secular Inquisition.

I'm no lawyer, and I don't even play one on TV. (To be sure, I don't play much of anything on TV – not my profession.) But whatever "badgering the witness" may be defined as, I'd bet money at least some of the questioning of Alito qualified.

My proposal is:

Confirmation hearings should be conducted using at least some of the rules of courtroom hearings. Let a judge, perhaps the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or parhaps a Supreme Court Justice drawn at random, oversee it. He would have the power to terminate lines of questioning that were not probitive, that were overly prejudicial, or that were just plain abusive.

Also, it seems many Senators on the committee would wander off to do something else while testimony was underway.

I had remarked in a previous post that I'd been under the impression that the purpose of a hearing was for the Senators to hear the Witnesses. Maybe it wasn't a joke – maybe the purpose is for the Witnesses to be harangued by whichever Senators care to be present.

If the purpose of a hearing is for the Senators in a committee to hear evidence so they can decide on an issue, then by golly, they should be required to stay in the room while testimony is being given.

I've served on two juries to date. Once a trial is underway, everyone has to be present for it to convene. If a juror (including any of the alternate jurors) is absent, the entire proceding waits until that juror returns, and he'd better have a darn good reason for wasting the court's time. This is because the jurors in any trial are themselves judges. They are judges of the facts in the case.

In these confirmation hearings, the Senators on the committee are judges. They are judging the qualifications of the nominee to hold the office to which he's been nominated. The notion that a judge should be able to wander off and tend to other things while a trial is ongoing appalls me.

In fact, while court is in session, even the spectators are expected to behave with a certain decorum. They may be able to leave and return while court's in session, but they're expected to pay attention. No reading, no doing crossword puzzles, no updating your blog. Senators on a committee hearing testimony should have to abide by those same rules, and at least give the appearance they're paying attention to the witness. This is, at the very least, simple courtesy.

And if individual Senators want to bloviate, then at the very least, they should have to sit through and look attentive while all their colleagues do the same.