 |
          
  |
|
|
In
her piece at Townhall.com Sandy Froman reminds us of the important
of Supreme Court nominees in the upcoming presidential election. This is something we can’t be reminded of
enough. Excerpt:
The political “hot button” issues of guns
and judges have become intertwined in this election year. The fate of both
issues will be decided by the candidate we elect as president. Why? Because
over a four-year term, that president will likely appoint at least two and
possibly three justices to the United States Supreme Court. Simply stated, this
year when we elect a president, we will also cast our ballot for the next
Supreme Court.
 As of yesterday, Judge Robert J.
Conrad has waited 300 days to be confirmed by the Senate to the Fourth Circuit
Court of Appeals. Conrad has the support
of both North Carolina senators and has been unanimously rated “well qualified”
by the American Bar Association (that organization’s highest rating). Despite his stated desire to respect the wishes
of home-state senators and despite the dangerous judicial emergency on the
fourth circuit due to judicial vacancies, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who is
the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, appears unwilling to give Judge
Conrad a swift hearing.
Tony
Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, speaks out the important
issue of judicial nominations, asking the crucial question:
Will social policy in the USA continue to
be made by panels of unelected judges with lifetime tenure, or will we have a
judiciary governed by self-restraint and fidelity to the rule of law?
He
goes on to quote Alexander Hamilton, one of our greatest but most
underappreciated founding fathers, in the Federalist Papers where he explains
the proper role of the federal judiciary when he says it has “neither force nor
will, but merely judgment.”
We
thank Mr. Perkins for his helpful piece and hope it motivates the Senate to act
on President Bush’s waiting judicial nominees.
The New York Times reports that a deal
could be in the works between the White House and Senate Democrats on the
stalemate over appellate judges. It is
unclear whether this deal would be beneficial over all. AdvanceUSA will be watching this important
issue closely.
Peter
Keisler, Steve Matthews, and Robert Conrad are excellent nominees who have been
waiting far too long for up-or-down votes in the U.S. Senate. The Senate needs to do its constitutional
duty and consider these nominees before the Memorial Day recess.
Our friends at the Committee for Justice have important information about the recent Senate agreement on judicial nominations. There is a strong danger that the good faith agreement recently struck will not be honored. If Chairman Leahy (D-VT), Majority Leader Reid (D-NV), the members of the Judiciary Committee, and both your senators don’t hear from you about this issue, we may not see three more crucial circuit court judges appointed by the Memorial Day recess.
CitizenLink also reports. Excerpt:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, have sent a second letter to Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., urging him to confirm three Circuit Court nominations before the Memorial Day recess.
Peter Keisler has been waiting 660 days for a committee vote. Steve Matthews and Robert Conrad, nominees for the 4th Circuit, have been waiting months for their hearings.
“All three of these nominees deserve prompt consideration by the Committee and up-or-down votes by the full Senate,” McConnell and Specter wrote in the letter.
Leahy said two weeks ago he would “do everything possible” to confirm the nominees by Memorial Day, but no action has been taken. Specter said hearings for Matthews and Conrad must be held by May 6 if they are to be confirmed before the recess.
For an illustration of the lack of progress on judges check AdvanceUSA’s circuit court comparison chart.
 The Wall Street Journal has a piece today explaining the significance of which three judges the Senate decides to confirm before Memorial Day as part of Sen. Harry Reid’s good faith commitment to that effect. It is important that every effort be made to confirm three of President Bush’s strongest and longest delayed nominees in the time before Memorial Day, especially since these nominees would fill important and critically short-handed posts. Excerpts (emphasis ours):
Republican Arlen Specter has the right idea in requesting a discharge petition to confirm Peter Keisler on the D.C. Circuit, plus Robert Conrad and Steve Matthews on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Keisler, appointed to fill the seat vacated by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, is one of the most qualified nominees to the bench. He's done stints as acting Attorney General and head of the Justice Department's Civil Division. Messrs. Matthews and Conrad are both well qualified and would be assets on the Fourth Circuit, which hears many of the country's most important terrorism cases.
The problem is that Democrats would rather fill pending vacancies with candidates who are either their patronage choices or pass muster with liberal interest groups.
…
Democrats are already far behind the historical pace for judicial confirmations in the last two years of a President's term, even in years with an opposition Senate. A GOP Senate confirmed 15 appeals-court nominees in Bill Clinton's last Congress, and Democrats confirmed 17 in Ronald Reagan's last two years. The Harry Reid Democrats have confirmed only seven.
All of this deserves more political elevation this year, not least because it will affect the next President.
…
GOP Senators need to use their minority rights now to insist that Democrats honor their pledge by confirming three bona fide Bush nominees. Democrats are hoping to run out the clock on the Bush Presidency, and the GOP should use the leverage it has while Mr. Reid still wants to get things done. Republicans need to make judges an issue so voters understand that the stakes on the federal appellate courts, including the Supreme Court, couldn't be higher in 2008.
The blog ConfirmThem.com also weighs in.
Author
and National Review editor at large Jonah Goldberg uses the recent Supreme
Court opinion regarding the death penalty to highlight the brazenness
and danger of activist judges who totally disregard the plain meaning of
the Constitution and ignore the intent of its framers. Excerpt:
What is staggering, or at least should be,
is that Stevens freely admits that he no longer considers "objective
evidence" or even the plain text of the Constitution determinative of what
is or isn't constitutional: "I have relied on my own experience in
reaching the conclusion that the imposition of the death penalty" is
unconstitutional.
Justice Antonin Scalia, in a blistering
response, justifiably exclaimed that, "Purer expression cannot be found of
the principle of rule by judicial fiat."
Mr.
Goldberg continues by drawing our attention to the statements and promises the
major presidential candidates regarding the kind of judges they will appoint to
federal courts. He convincingly makes
the case that, when considering the future of the Supreme Court, “this is one
of the most important elections in a very long time.”
AdvanceUSA is encouraged to learn that a good faith deal has been struck in the Senate which would result in three more of the president’s circuit court nominees being confirmed before the Memorial Day recess. This appears to be an important step toward progress on the crucial issue of judicial appointments, and we hope this will result in the Senate achieving the historical precedent of 15-17 circuit court judges being confirmed in a president’s last two years in office.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) statement:
I was encouraged by the Majority Leader’s commitment to confirming three more circuit court nominees by Memorial Day. That will bring the total for the 110th Congress to 10, and it is a good step toward reaching the goal that we outlined at the beginning of this Congress of reaching the historical average.
Because of the Majority Leader’s good faith commitment, I’m confident that we’ll have these three additional nominees confirmed by Memorial Day.
Excerpt from Roll Call article (subscription):
Dangling the popular highway funding bill as his hostage, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) struck a deal Tuesday night with Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to dislodge a handful of President Bush’s stalled appellate court nominees.
Here
are some helpful resources on the recent Senate dust-up over judges.
Thanks
to the leadership and courage of many senators one more appellate court nominee
has been approved (Catharina Haynes, 5th Circuit). The Senate still has a long, long way to go
to do justice to President Bush’s nominees so we encourage senators to keep up
the pressure on judges.
As
our newly updated
graphic shows, the Senate has been acting at a “snail’s pace” on judges and
needs to step it up.
Senate
Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) spoke out
on the slow pace of judges this morning in the Senate. Excerpt:
It’s been 108 days since this Senate
confirmed a federal judge of any kind. It last did so the week before
Christmas, on December 18, 2007.
Since then, the Senate has made precious
little progress on judicial nominations.
It has not confirmed any federal judicial
nominees this year, and the Judiciary Committee has held only one hearing on
one circuit court nominee since last September.
Today we will finally be able to confirm
some judicial nominees. That is obviously good news. But after we confirm the
judicial nominees on the calendar that may be it for a while, due to the
glacial pace at which the Judiciary Committee is proceeding.
We
have been informed that the Senate will today consider the following judicial
nominees.
Brian
Miller (Arkansas)
James
Randal Hall (GA)
John
Mendez (CA)
Stanley
Anderson (TN)
Catharina
Haynes (Fifth Circuit)
We
are glad to see Catharina Haynes on this list and look forward to adding
another number to our circuit
court chart comparison, bringing the number of Bush appellate court nominees
confirmed in his last two years to a whopping 7 (compared to 15 in Clinton’s
last two years).
Former Judiciary Chairman Sen. Orin Hatch
(R-UT) also
spoke out on judges. Here is an
excerpt from his speech:
…one of my colleagues was recently quoted
as saying that facts are stubborn things.
The facts are that the majority has
virtually shut down the judicial confirmation process.
Our friends at the Committee for Justice provide an interesting and exciting account of the recent showdown in the Senate Judiciary Committee over the sorry lack of progress on giving hearings or fair up-or-down votes to President Bush’s judicial nominees.
We applaud the committee members who spoke up on the issue and encourage them to keep up the pressure until all of the President’s pending appellate court nominations have had hearings and floor votes. Appointing well-qualified, originalist judges to the federal bench (especially when many courts are experiencing vacancy crises) is too important an issue to do anything less.
Please call Chairman Leahy and both your state’s senators and urge them to do their constitutional duty and hold hearing for and vote on the Presidents judicial nominees.
On
April 1 Senator Specter addressed the need to make progress on President Bush’s
judicial nominations. We applaud Sen.
Specter for his speech, and urge the Senate to fulfill its constitutional duty
to provide “advice and consent” to the President on the important matter of
judicial nominations. Excerpt of Sen.
Specter’s speech:
We have a situation where there has not
been one confirmation of a Federal judge this year. Since September 25th of
last year, there has only been one hearing for a circuit judge, and that was on
February 21, in the midst of a recess. There have only been two hearings that
included district court judges, the one on February 12 and one other. Six
nominees have been heard; four are on the agenda for this week's executive
business meeting.
The comparison between what has happened
with President Bush and President Clinton shows a decisive imbalance which
requires prompt action by the Senate on the confirmation of President Bush's
judges.
To
see a graphic illustrating the historical imbalance Sen. Specter referred to click here.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) is planning to lead a strategy to shut down the Senate unless President Bush’s many appellate court nominations are given hearings and fair up-or-down votes (which is the Senate’s constitutional duty). In light of the extreme importance of appointing well-qualified, originalist judges to the federal bench, we applaud his leadership in forcing the Senate to do its job when it comes to judges. Excerpt from WSJ article:
The Democratic Senate has confirmed a mere six nominees with no plans in sight to move the remaining 11 forward. Judicial nominees rarely are confirmed in the final months of a President's second term, so the clock is running out. Democrats figure they'll retake the White House in November, and they don't mind leaving the courts short-handed for another year or two as they stall for liberal nominees.
Mr. Specter says he has recommended that Republicans "go full steam ahead" until Democrats agree to hold confirmation votes.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) recently gave a speech in the Senate on the importance of making progress on judges. He also published an opinion piece in the National Review on the same topic. Excerpt:
The Constitution gives to the president authority to nominate and appoint federal judges. The Senate provides advice about whether the president should appoint his judicial nominees by giving or withholding consent through up or down votes. That is what the Constitution assigns us to do. That is what Americans expect the Senate to do. That is what the Senate is failing to do.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has also urged action on judges.
It’s time our friends on the other side stop blaming others for their own failures to act on judicial nominations. If they don’t, Republicans will be forced to consider other options.
Improving the makeup of the federal bench and making sure there are enough judges to promote justice in America is one of the most important issues in our country. We applaud the efforts by Senators McConnell, Specter, and Hatch to make progress on this front.
Contact Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and urge him to get to work on judicial nominations. Also, contact both your senators and urge them to push for progress on judicial nominations.
Politico reports. If a Senate “staredown” makes judicial
nominations an important issue in 2008, we say “bring it on.”
AdvanceUSA is proud of the courageous leadership shown by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) yesterday on the crucial issue of judicial confirmations. As frequently reported by AdvanceUSA, the Senate has shamefully fallen behind on its duty to consider and vote on the Presidents nominations to critical federal court positions. The obstruction is particularly dangerous when considering Circuit Court vacancies. Our friends at the Committee for Justice helpfully report on the leadership meetings that took place yesterday, as well as commenting on the excellent floor statements made by several Senators.
Excerpts:
Monday’s meeting appeared to mark a turning point in what the letter calls the Senate’s “most bitter” controversy. A fight over judges has been brewing for weeks now, as GOP senators have become increasingly frustrated with Leahy’s obstruction of nominees. Sen. Specter had urged his colleagues to postpone any hardball tactics while he tried again to work things out with Leahy. But yesterday, “Specter indicated to the conservative leaders that he too had run out of patience and was ready to lead his colleagues into battle,” said Committee for Justice executive director Curt Levey, one of the participants in the meeting.
…
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the floor after Specter to urge that his “Democratic colleagues resist the desire by some to drag us back into judicial confirmation brinksmanship.” McConnell noted that “many of these [judicial] nominees satisfy most or all of [Leahy’s] specific criteria for prompt consideration: they have strong-home state support, they fill judicial emergencies, and they have good or outstanding ABA ratings.” Nonetheless, McConnell said, “there have been no judicial confirmations so far this year, and there has been only one hearing on a circuit court nominee since September of last year.” In last year’s most contentious fight over a judicial nominee, both McConnell and Specter were instrumental in the successful confirmation of Fifth Circuit nominee Leslie Southwick.
Full story here.
To read the entire floor statements of Senators McConnell and Specter see below:
McConnell: End Brinksmanship on Judicial Nominees
Senator Arlen Specter Speaks on the Senate Floor Regarding Judicial Nominations
AdvanceUSA is encouraged that judicial confirmations might become a major issue in the 2008 election because the best strategy for getting well-qualified, originalist judges on federal benches is to rally voters to hold their elected officials accountable for who they nominate and how they vote (or don’t vote) on nominations.
To see how the major presidential candidates stand on judicial nominations and other issues, check out AdvanceUSA’s 2008 Candidates Comparisons.
The
Committee for Justice explains. Here
is a particularly helpful excerpt relating to the role and importance of
judges:
Nonetheless, if you are not a judicial
conservative, you may be asking what’s wrong with judges protecting the weak
from the strong? Well, for one thing, identification of “the weak” is very much
in the eye of the beholder. We’re guessing that Barack Obama does not want
judges to favor gun owners, unborn babies, white men challenging employers’
racial preferences, or property owners threatened by environmental regulations,
no matter how much power they’re up against.
Moreover, the Constitution and the laws
enacted by our elected representatives already contain many protections for
criminal defendants, employees, minorities, women, and the like. The job of a
judge is to dispassionately apply these constitutional and statutory
protections, not to second guess their authors. That’s not to say that a good
judge succeeds at being completely dispassionate in every case. But it is only
the Left that wants to enshrine “what is in the judge's heart” as a “critical
ingredient” in the law, to quote Barack Obama.
Sen. Barack Obama
(D-IL)
Democrat candidate
for president
 Catharina Haynes was nominated by President Bush on July 17, 2007 to sit on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Besides the grave importance of appointing well-qualified originalist judges to federal benches, there is a particular sense of urgency in Haynes’ case because the Fifth Circuit is shorthanded and in desperate need for another judge. Yesterday Haynes was finally questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee. President Bush has called for a swift up-or-down vote on her nomination and AdvanceUSA heartily agrees. To read a fact sheet on Catharina Haynes prepared by the White House click here.
AdvanceUSA calls on the Senate Judiciary Committee to swiftly vote Haynes out of committee, and calls on the Senate to give her a fair up-or-down vote as the Constitution requires.
For more information on judicial nomination click here or visit the pro-justice page.
Our friend Curt Levey at the Committee for Justice compares the recent refusal of the House Democrat leadership to allow a vote on the Protect America Act to the obstruction of President Bush’s judicial nominees. Excerpt:
…our view on passage of the Protect America Act is the same as our philosophy on the confirmation of judicial nominees. If senators and House members are sincere in their belief that the PAA is a threat to civil liberties or that the President’s judicial nominees threaten civil rights – they can and should vote against passage or confirmation on the floor. What they should not do is thwart the will of the majority by preventing a fair up-or-down vote.
The Protect America Act and FISA are not major issues for AdvanceUSA, but we certainly share the frustration over the Senate’s intolerably slow pace of confirming judicial nominations and urge a fair up-or-down vote for all the president's nominees.
To see a graphic representation of the slow pace of judicial confirmations click here. For more information on judicial nomination check the AdvanceUSA pro-justice page.
| | |