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Home > Blog > All > Caitlin Halligan

Caitlin Halligan

  • March 13, 2013

    Republican Obstructionists’ Ongoing Assault on Judicial, Executive Branch Nominees

    by Jeremy Leaming

    There was an opening early in the 113th Congress to make life a bit tougher on the Senate’s band of obstructionists – through reform of the filibuster. But the obstructionists’ ringleader, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-K.Y.), deftly avoided real reform by saying the Obama administration’s nominations to the lower federal district courts would be moved along more quickly.

    But so-called reform has quickly proven rather lame. The president’s nominations to federal appeals courts as well as important executive branch positions remain in the cross-hairs of obstructionists who require a 60-vote majority before any action can be taken on those nominations or for that matter legislation.

    On March 6 the Senate killed the president’s nomination of Caitlin Halligan for as seat on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. As Matt Vister noted earlier this week in an extensive piece for the Boston Globe the D.C. appeals court “has only seven out of 11 judges, the worst vacancy in its history and higher than any other federal circuit court nationwide. Obama has never been able to get a nominee on the court, symbolizing the Senate’s failure to approve nominations to dozens of courts nationwide.”

    And the Senate’s obstructionists are again taking aim at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created in part to prevent the shady practices employed by the financial industry, which helped usher in the Great Recession. Right-wing senators beholden to the nation’s superwealthy are demanding changes to the law that created the bureau or they will likely again filibuster Obama’s selection to head the bureau, former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray. Cordray was appointed to head the bureau during a recess of Congress. But an opinion from the D.C. Circuit – the court Obama has been blocked from appointing any judges – ruled earlier this year that the president’s three recess appoints to a hobbled National Labor Relations Board were unconstitutional. The Obama administration has appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Because Cordray’s appointment was made during a recess, it will expire and he’ll still need to be confirmed. But Republican obstructionists are threatening to block Cordray unless the financial reform law is weakened.

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) during a Senate Banking Committee yesterday blasted the obstructionism, saying, “I think that the delay in getting him confirmed is bad for consumers, it’s bad for small banks, it’s bad for credit unions, it’s bad for anyone trying to offer an honest product in an honest market. The American people deserve a Congress that worries less about helping big banks and more about helping regular people who have been cheated on mortgages, on credit cards, on student loans, on credit reports.” The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jeff Gelles has more on Warren’s comments and a link to video of the hearing.)

    Today TPM’s Brian Beutler reports that Obama during a meeting with Democrats this week “expressed his frustration with Republican slow-walking and filibustering of key nominees, and urged them to address the issue ….”

     

    More
    Tags:
    Executive power, Other courts, Judicial Nominations, Caitlin Halligan, filibuster, President Obama, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Senate obstructionism
  • March 8, 2013

    Making Progress, Albeit Slowly, on Diversifying the Federal Bench

    by Kristine Kippins

    In celebration of International Women’s Day, ACS highlights the progress made over the last four years to diversify our federal judiciary.

    According to the White House, President Obama has taken great steps to put more women on the bench. With two vacancies on the Supreme Court, Obama filled both spots with women, including the first Latina Justice, Sonia Sotomayor.  He appointed the second and third openly gay women to the district courts, Alison Nathan and Pamela Chen.  Chen is the first openly gay Asian American on the federal bench.  Six district courts have their first female judge ever – AK, E.D. Cal., S.D. Iowa, ME, VT, and Wyo. Shelly Dick will be number seven once installed in the Middle District of Louisiana.  Five states can now claim their first female circuit court judge – Alaska, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Virginia, and West Virginia. And the first Asian American woman to a circuit court, Jacqueline Nguyen, now sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. 

    Overall, Obama has placed 74 women on the federal bench, 42 percent of all confirmations, and that same statistic carries through to the percentage of female nominees pending in the Senate.  At this point in his presidency, George W. Bush could only boast that 22 percent of his confirmed judges being women.

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    Tags:
    Supreme Court, Other courts, Women's rights, Judicial Nominations, Caitlin Halligan, Diversity, Federal Bench, International Women's Day, Patricia Wald, President George W. Bush, President Obama
  • March 7, 2013

    Sen. Paul’s Filibuster Highlights Sham Filibuster used to Kill Halligan Nomination

    by Jeremy Leaming

    Sen. Rand Paul, (R-K.Y.) may be a strident, sometimes over-the-top Tea Party supporter and fervent antigovernment advocate, but his filibuster of President Obama’s pick to head the C.I.A. was principled. He did so by actually taking to the Senate floor to explain, albeit in very long fashion, his opposition to the administration’s nominee C.I.A. John Brennan, who was confirmed today for the position.

    Paul’s action was far different than the Republican obstructionists’ baseless and practically silent filibuster of Caitlin Halligan to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. As Greg Sargent writes in The Plum Line, “Paul’s filibuster was born out of concern about an actual issue – objections to Obama’s approach to drone warfare that are shared on both sides of the aisle.” [See below for more commentary on the Obama administration’s secretive use of drones]

    Halligan, however, was blocked by senators who on the whole probably spoke less than two hours about Halligan. And their objections were incredibly lame. She’s received the ABA’s highest ranking for qualification and exceedingly strong support in the legal community, both conservatives and progressives.

    Republican senators have been obstructing the judicial nominations process ever since Obama first took office. The president was not able to appoint a judge to the D.C. Circuit during his first term because of Republicans’ obstinacy. There is simply a great desire among the Senate Republicans to keep as many vacancies open, especially on the powerful D.C. Circuit, for as long as possible. These obstructionists are beholden to a base that coddles the superrich and riles up a shrinking group, albeit loud and still influential, obsessed with keeping the courts packed with right-wing ideologues. Too many of those right-wing jurists help support state efforts to abolish abortion and make life much more difficult for those in the LGBT community and undocumented persons.

    The sham filibuster, which is the preferred tool of the Senate’s obstructionists, has become the norm. It has been used to halt consideration of policy such as efforts to confront climate change or address immigration reform; but it has most often been used to delay or kill executive branch or judicial branch nominations. Indeed, thanks to the sham filibuster, the Republicans have helped create more than 80 vacancies on the federal bench. In fact vacancies have hovered at 80 or above for much of Obama’s term. The Senate Republicans’ assault on the federal bench, serves their political purposes, but harms the judiciary and Americans who rely on the courts to uphold constitutional rights and seek redress of grievances. A federal bench burdened with fewer judges and larger caseloads is no way for the judiciary to function.

     

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    Tags:
    Executive power, Search and seizure/Fourth amendment, Constitutional Interpretation and Change, Criminal Justice, Caitlin Halligan, CIA, filibuster, filibuster reform, President Obama, Sen. Rand Paul, Senate obstructionism
  • March 6, 2013

    Senate Obstructionists Block D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Nominee

    by Jeremy Leaming

    Another highly qualified nominee was the victim of the Senate’s obstructionists’ ongoing assault on the judiciary, which includes burdening the federal bench with high vacancies and larger caseloads.

    Today the Senate filibustered the nomination of Caitlin Halligan for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, largely along a party-line vote, 54-45, with one Republican joining all the Democrats. Halligan was hailed in the legal community, liberal and conservatives, alike as greatly suited to serve in the judiciary.

    But as noted here yesterday, obstructionists continued to claim Halligan to “extreme” on constitutional issues. And they seem bent on keeping vacancies open and giving higher hurdles to confirmation for women and minority nominees in particular.

    ACS President Caroline Fredrickson blasted the action today saying, in part, that the obstructionists are undermining a pillar of democracy.

    “Our courts and citizens are seeing justice delayed because our courts cannot function effectively or efficiently without judges. It’s far past time to end this vacancy crisis and get our justice system back up and running," Fredrickson said. (See her full statement .)

    Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) also took on the needless obstruction of judicial nominations, and some of his Republican colleagues, concluding, “They have not been fair to this fine woman.”

    President Obama called the senators' action a "pattern of obstruction," adding that his  "judicial nominees wait more than three times as long on the Senate floor to receive a vote than my predecessor's nominees." Like retired U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Judge Patricia M. Wald noted in a column for The Washington Post, the president also highlighted the harm done to the D.C. circuit court, which was gone years with vacancies.

    "The effects of this obstruction take the heaviest toll on the D.C. Circuit, considered the Nation's second-highest court, which has only seven active judges and four vacancies," the president's March 6 statement reads. "Until last month, for more than forty years, the court has always had at least eight active judges and as many as twelve."

    Tags:
    Judicial Nominations, Caitlin Halligan, Caroline Fredrickson, Federal Bench, filibuster, Judiciary, Sen. Patrick Leahy, Senate obstructionism
  • March 5, 2013

    Senate Obstructionists Appear Ready to Doom Another Judicial Nomination

    by Jeremy Leaming

    Despite the so-called “rules reform” the ardent Republican obstructionists that occupy the U.S. Senate are at it again – filibustering Caitlin Halligan for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Speaking of the rules reform, it was convenient that it only applied to nominations to U.S. District Courts, allowing obstinate obstructionists to carry on a war on the courts or more specifically President Obama’s selections for the nation’s appeals courts.

    And in this case, yet another woman nominee is being obstructed. Yes, Republicans and some commentators claim minority and women nominees are not being targeted, but that claim turns wobbly when we look at the lengths of time it has taken for many women and minority nominees to be confirmed as opposed to their white-male counterparts. For example, federal court nominees Mary Murgia, Jill Pryor, Arvo Mikkanen, Natasha Perdw Silas, Linda Walker and Elissa Cadish have all suffered from obstructionism, causing several of them to withdraw their nominations.  

    In the case of Halligan (pictured), the general counsel for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, the wait for an up-or-down confirmation vote has been ludicrous – she’s been nominated and renominated four times by the president. And an up-or-down vote on her nomination is not assured now. The obstructionists appear bent on keeping as many seats on what is considered the second most powerful court in the land open. Maybe the obstructionists hope that in four years Republicans will capture the White House and they’ll control the Senate and be able to return to packing the federal bench with right-wing jurists.

    Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy today urged his Republican colleagues to dump the filibuster and give Halligan an up-or-down vote, noting that the D.C. appeals court hears some of the nation’s most pressing constitutional matters, especially on separation of powers and national security concerns and that the court has longstanding vacancies that need to be filled. (A court, regardless of what a right-wing blogger might utter, does need a full bench of active judges to adequately and efficiently function.)

    Press Secretary Jay Carney also weighed in during the March 5 press briefing, noting the D.C. appeals court’s caseload has swelled because of the vacancies. “In fact,” Carney said, “the court has never been this understaffed in its history and the caseload has increased almost 15 percent since 2011. (In a column for The Washington Post, retired U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Judge Patricia M. Wald, explains the constraints the vacancies have placed on the court’s active judges.)

     

    More
    Tags:
    Other courts, Judicial Nominations, Caitlin Halligan, filibuster, Jay Carney, Judge Patricia M. Wald, Sen. Patrick Leahy, Senate obstructionism, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
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