AdvanceUSA applauds the courage and leadership displayed by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and others in holding Senate leadership accountable for their broken promises and lack of progress in giving the president’s judicial nominations hearings or fair up-or-down votes. Appointing judges to the bench who understand the limits of their authority and who will respect and uphold the Constitution is one of the most crucial issues facing our nation and we cannot allow partisan politics to distort the judicial nomination process. The Committee for Justice reports.
Sandy Froman also comments on the situation at Townhall.com and provides some helpful historical and constitutional perspective. Excerpt:
The Constitution gives the president the authority to nominate judges, and the Senate the power to confirm them. The Founding Fathers made it clear that the president’s appointment power was broad and the Senate’s role was limited. The Senate was only to ensure that the president’s nominee was a person of fit character. As Alexander Hamilton explained in The Federalist No. 76, the Senate should rarely withhold approval and only when there are extreme reasons, such as the nomination of an unqualified friend or family member.
For 200 years that was usually the way it worked. The Senate only denied confirmation if there were problems with a nominee’s education, experience, or integrity. Otherwise nominees were confirmed regardless of their political beliefs. That’s why conservative Antonin Scalia was confirmed to the Supreme Court 98-0, and liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed 96-3. They were top graduates from top law schools, with stellar careers as federal appellate judges and good character.
But things have gone badly astray. Throughout President Bush’s tenure, Senate Democrats have increasingly slowed or stopped nominations not for reasons of qualification or character but because they suspected the nominee was conservative. It started in 2001 when Judge Charles Pickering was nominated to the Fifth Circuit. Judge Pickering had support from diverse groups in Mississippi, including that of local black civil rights groups for Pickering’s stand against the Klu Klux Klan. The accusation against him? That he was racist. The real reason for the opposition was that Pickering is an evangelical Christian.
Some good nominees, like William Pryor, Priscilla Owen and Brett Kavanaugh were eventually confirmed. Others, like Miguel Estrada, were not.
This unforgivable obstructionism continues today.
Read her full article here.