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Home > Blog > All > Judicial Nominations

Judicial Nominations

  • July 13, 2012

    This Week on JudicialNominations.org

    by Samantha Berkovits

    Image previewThe myth of the so-called “Thurmond Rule,” that confirmations of appeals court nominees should halt during election season, is interfering with efforts to fill the 76 federal judicial vacancies remaining around the nation. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) invoked the “rule” to stop progress on pending federal appeals court nominees such as First Circuit nominee William Kayatta Jr., even though Maine’s two republican senators have called for a floor vote. Tenth Circuit nominee Robert Bacharach has been similarly held up, but his home-state senators have yet to speak out against the “Thurmond Rule” or call for a floor vote.

    The Senate confirmed John T. Fowlkes Jr. to fill a vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the District of Tennessee, and it will hold a confirmation vote July 16 on Kevin McNulty for the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.   

    Three more district court nominees, Terrence G. Berg, for the Eastern District of Michigan; Jesus G. Bernal, for the Central District of California; and Lorna G. Schofield, for the Southern District of New York were reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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    Tags:
    Other courts, Judicial Nominations
  • July 6, 2012

    The Other Health Case: D.C. Circuit Judges Reject Challenges to EPA Rules on Greenhouse Gases

    Guest Post

    By Glenn Sugameli, Staff Attorney, Defenders of Wildlife's Judging the Environment. (Sugameli founded in 2001 and still heads the environmental community's Judging the Environment project and website on federal judicial nominations and related issues.)

     As the Austin American-Statesman’s editorial board commented in "Greenhouse gas ruling timely, right":

    Overshadowed last week by U.S. Supreme Court rulings on health care and immigration, but just as significant in its own right, was the unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., affirming federal regulations of greenhouse gases. The three judges — one a Ronald Reagan appointee … said the Environmental Protection Agency was "unambiguously correct" to set rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, given global warming's potential harm to the public's health.

    The Salt Lake Tribune’s editorial, "Another health case; Appeals court rightly stands by EPA," agreed: "While most of the country was waiting for a court ruling that would affect how many Americans insure their health care, another court was handing down an order that will go a long way to ensure the health of the entire planet."

    This importance of the issues in Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. Environmental Protection Agency is augmented by synergistic factors. These include: (1) the court that decided them; (2) the judges who joined the unsigned per curiam opinion; (3) the high likelihood that their ruling is the final judicial word; (4) the very strong language the judges used; and (5) the decision’s impact in confirming the scientific facts of climate change.

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    Tags:
    Federal judicial selection, Environmental protection, Constitutional Interpretation and Change, Economic, Workplace and Environment Regulation, Judicial Nominations, D.C. Circuit, environmental regulations, EPA, greenhouse gas, Guest Post, health care, judge janice brown
  • June 22, 2012

    One Year and Counting in Blue Slip Hold-Up of Ariz. Nominee

    by Nicole Flatow

    Saturday marks one year since Rosemary Marquez was nominated to fill a judicial emergency seat in the District of Arizona, a jurisdiction so overwhelmed with immigration and drug cases that the chief judge has said it might be difficult to find anyone willing to accept a nomination.

    But as Cronkite News reports, Marquez’s nomination has not moved one inch since June 2011, thanks to the Arizona senators’ refusal to submit the required “blue slips.”

    Withholding these blue slips has increasingly become a means of imposing a de facto veto on Obama nominees, with similar blocks causing longtime freezes on nominees in Georgia, Nevada, Kansas and Oklahoma.

    And threatening to withhold blue slips has prevented President Obama from even making nominations or re-nominations in many other instances, The National Law Journal reports.

    In Wisconsin, nominees once supported by both senators were sent back to the President after newly elected Sen. Ron Johnson refused to support Obama’s nominees. In Kansas, Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran withdrew their support for a nominee they originally backed. And in Georgia, Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson have refused to submit blue slips on a circuit court nominee they supported for the district court.

    Perhaps one of the most disturbing examples of this trend was the failed nomination of Arvo Mikkanen, who would have been only the third Native American federal judge in American history.

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    Tags:
    Federal judicial selection, Other courts, Judicial Nominations, blue slips, Cloture, filibuster, senate obstruction
  • June 22, 2012

    This Week on JudicialNominations.org

    by Samantha Berkovits

    Mary Geiger Lewis was confirmed to the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina by a 64-27 vote. The votes of South Carolina’s Republican Senators were split, with Sen. Graham voting for her nomination and Sen. DeMint against. Lewis is the first woman from South Carolina to be confirmed to the federal bench during President Obama’s term and she received the support of all five female Republican Senators.

     
    Judge Brian Davis has been reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He currently sits on the Fourth Judicial Circuit of Florida and has been nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Senator Grassley (R-Iowa) has, as he has for many recent nominees, opposed Davis’s nomination. Grassley has cited specific remarks referring to race that the African American judge has made in the past as reason to believe that Davis will bring a bias in favor of African Americans to the bench and his nomination should be blocked, though he admits that “I am not accusing Judge Davis of violating any Canon or of unprofessional conduct.”
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    Other courts, Judicial Nominations
  • June 12, 2012

    Reid, Obama Escalate Push to Overcome Filibusters of Appeals Court Nominees

    By Nicole Flatow

    The Senate confirmed Andrew Hurwitz on Tuesday to fill a judicial emergency seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The confirmation will deliver some welcome relief to the overworked Ninth Circuit, which has more than twice the caseload of the next-busiest circuit.

    But to even reach today’s vote on Hurwitz, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was forced to file a motion to invoke cloture, a once-extraordinary measure to which Reid has had to resort 28 times to push through long-pending Obama judicial nominees.

    Just last month, Reid resorted to a cloture motion to push through another Ninth Circuit nominee with broad bipartisan support, Paul Watford. And over the past few months, he has escalated his effort to overcome record obstruction of judicial nominees, and curb the persistent judicial vacancy crisis on the federal courts. Even more extraordinary is that 25 of these 28 nominees were confirmed after motions to invoke cloture and months of delay, many with near-unanimous support. 

    One nominee who did not survive a motion to invoke cloture was Caitlin Halligan [pictured], nominated to the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The Senate’s filibuster of Halligan, a former New York State solicitor general with broad bipartisan support, prompted outrage from President Obama and many legal leaders. Obama lamented at the time that the Senate’s vote “dramatically lowers the bar used to justify a filibuster.”

    Because some Republican senators blocked an up-or-down vote on Halligan in December, her nomination was sent back to President Obama at the end of the last session of Congress.

    In a strong statement backing his nominees this week, President Obama sent Halligan right back to the Senate, re-nominating her to the D.C. appeals court, along with Sri Srinivasan, the principal deputy solicitor general at the Department of Justice.

    "This important court is often called the nation's second-highest court, and it stands more than a quarter vacant," Obama said. "I remain deeply disappointed that a minority of the United States Senate blocked Ms. Halligan's nomination last year and urge her reconsideration, especially given her broad bipartisan support from the legal and law enforcement communities."

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    Tags:
    Federal judicial selection, Other courts, Judicial Nominations, Caitlin Halligan, Cloture, filibuster, senate obstruction, U.S. Court of Appeals for Ninth Circuit
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