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Home > Blog > All > Judicial Nominations

Judicial Nominations

  • March 14, 2013

    Republicans Show No Interest in Moving on Judicial Nominations

    by Jeremy Leaming

    President Obama urged Republican senators to stop holding up his judicial nominations earlier this week, but according to The Huffington Post the president “appears to have gotten a cool reception.”

    This is disheartening, but hardly surprising. As noted here frequently, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-K.Y.) has led an assault on the federal judiciary, by stalling for months or effectively filibustering many of the president’s judicial selections. Senators have employed numerous tactics under McConnell to slow or kill numerous judicial nominations thereby leading to a high vacancy rate on the federal bench. The Constitutional Accountability Center’s Judith E. Schaeffer noted today that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Ranking Member, again delayed a vote on the nomination of Jane Kelly to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Citing numbers from People For the American Way, she notes that “with only five exceptions” Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have used a procedural tactic that allows them to delay a scheduled vote on a nominee.

    Other judicial nominees have dropped out of the confirmation process because of the delaying tactics. The Senate this week confirmed Richard Taranto to a seat on the federal appeals court bench nearly a year and a half after he was nominated.

    These stalling tactics are used far too often by the Republican obstructionists, including the use of the 60-vote majority -- or the threat of it -- to allow for up-or-down votes on too many of the president’s judicial nominations.

    So it is laughable – or galling – to hear Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) tell The Huffington Post reporter that as he understands it, his party has only blocked “two judges.” (He’s referring to Caitlin Halligan and Goodwin Liu.)

    Senate Republicans regardless of their loopy claims to the contrary are bent on dragging their feet on the president’s judicial nominations, while vacancies on the federal bench grow as do caseloads of individual judges. Moran knows that but he’s apparently not above dissembling on the matter.

    Tags:
    Other courts, Judicial Nominations, Judith Schaeffer, President Obama, Sen. Jerry Moran, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Senate obstructionism
  • March 14, 2013

    Not Even a Hawkeye Could Break Through Senator Grassley’s Obstruction of the President’s Judicial Nominees

    Guest Post

    by Judith E. Schaeffer, Vice President of the Constitutional Accountability Center. This post is cross-posted from CAC’s Text & History Blog.

    Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to vote on the nomination of Jane Kelly to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Nonetheless, even though Kelly is a highly qualified, uncontroversial nominee and her confirmation hearing on February 27 was a virtual love fest, no vote took place.

    Why not? Well, since the start of the Obama Administration, with only five exceptions,* Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have routinely invoked a procedural rule allowing them to insist that a scheduled vote on a nominee be held over – postponed until the Committee’s next meeting or until the following week, whichever is later. They invoked that rule again today, putting off a vote on Jane Kelly, another instance of a mindless abuse of a rule intended to provide more time when more time is actually needed, not a rule intended to put off votes on uncontroversial nominees purely for the sake of delay, which is how Republicans have been using it. The abuse of this rule is just one more example of the unprecedented obstruction to which Republicans have subjected President Obama’s judicial nominees for the past four years.

    Jane Kelly hails from Iowa, the home state of Senator Charles Grassley, Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee. Apparently, however, not even senatorial courtesy to a well-qualified, uncontroversial, home state nominee could trump the relentless obstruction of the President’s judicial nominees. And so the damage to our Nation’s judiciary continues.

     *Thanks to my colleagues at People For the American Way for the statistics.

    Tags:
    Other courts, Judicial Nominations, Constitutional Accountability Center, Guest Post, Jane Kelly, Judith Schaeffer, Obama administration, Sen. Charles Grassley, Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate obstructionism, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
  • 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.

    More
    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 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
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