Michigan Senators Create Crisis by Vetoing Judicial Appointees

The nomination of Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Richard Griffin to the federal bench makes him the latest pawn is an outrageous, lingering stalemate between the White House and the U.S. Senate. It has created a severe shortage of judges.

For years, it was a deadlock between the Clinton White House and the Republican-ruled Senate. Now it's between the Bush White House and the narrowly Democatic Senate - where Michigan's Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow essentially have veto power over appointees from their state.

On Thursday, President Bush nominated Griffin to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has declared a judicial emergency because half of its 16 positions are vacant. Four of the vacancies are Michigan seats.

But there may not even be a hearing this year on confirmation of Griffin and three previous Michigan Bush nominees who have been twisting in the wind for more than a year while politicians play tit-for-tat.

The federal court system has 86 vacancies. The percentage is highest in the 6th Circuit, which handles appeals from federal district courts in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee.

Gov. John Engler Friday correctly declared the Senate guilty of "misuse of the advice and consent authority." He's particularly frustrated by the vacancies and backlog in the 6th Circuit, where Michigan is appealing federal court rulings that knocked down laws on drug testing of welfare recipients and registries of sex offenders.

Engler told me the problem is so serious he thinks President Bush should consider filling all vacancies with recess appointments of judges who would serve two years without Senate confirmation and then step down.

"America is facing a crisis in our courts," says U.S. Rep. David Camp, R-Midland. "The Senate has failed to see the importance of fufilling its constitutional responsibility."

Traditionally, the Senate Judiciary Committee will not advance a president's judicial nomination without consent of the home state senators. Democrats Levin and Stabenow vow that the four Michigan vacancies in the 6th will not be filled "in the absence of bipartisan compromise."

The shoe was on the other foot before the 2000 election that put Bush in the White House and Stabenow in the seat of Republican Sen. Spencer Abraham, who had balked at Clinton appointees to the court.

Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Helene White and Detroit attorney Kathleen McCree Lewis were nominated to the federal bench by Clinton but never got a hearing in the GOP-controlled Senate. Levin says White's "four-year wait was longer than that of any nominee in Senate history."

After Bush's nomination of Griffin - son of ex-Sen. Bob Griffin - Levin and Stabenow said: "The White House has regrettably opted for stalemate" over the 6th Circuit.

They said they had "made repeated attempts to reach compromise." One would have Bush nominate White and Lewis to appeals and district vacancies.

It was wrong for the Senate to fail to act on Clinton's Michigan nominees. But another wrong won't make things right for Michigan. Enough is enough.

Griffin, Federal District Judge David McKeague, state Appeals Judge Henry Saad and Wayne Circuit Court Judge Susan Neilson should be individually evaluated for Michigan vacancies on the 6th Circuit - not shelved until voters decide Nov. 5 which party will rule the Senate.

I've been talking to people I know trying to get rid of Levin for years. Debbie Stab-em-now couldn't get elected in my county, a repub stronghold, so she went up to Muskegon county and that bunch of idiot democraps elected her!

You and me both. Until we can change some of the voting patterns within their districts, we're sunk. I hate this liberal state sometimes, although there is some promise.

I live up north and its fairly conservative (Bradstreet is state Rep).

Thanks for the comments.

"What you really have to ask yourself is this. Do you want Zacharias Moussaoui to face the death penalty, if guilty? One of Clintoon judges, installed with Republican help, instead of resistance, just ruled the Death Penalty, in his Federal District, unconstitutional. Do you really want insects, animals, plants and geographical features to take precedent over man?"

Nope. I wouldn't want him to face the death penalty. For one thing, that's what he wants. That makes him a martyr. Let him sit in jail and rot in solitary and go even more insane than he already is. Or, if you really want to be nasty, put him in with the general population. Someone will take him over, use him like a $20 whore, and pass him around like a blow-up sex doll for $5 a shot. But my real reason is that I don't think that the fact that this man usurped the role of God in deciding human life or death justifies the state to do the same.

"Do you believe in God?"

Indeed I do. Go to Church most Sundays and sing in the choir, in fact.

"If so, why is it so offensive to liberal judges that they always try and shun him from any public utterance."

I can't answer for another man's motives. Read their decisions and make of them what you will. They usually state their reasons there.

"Have you ever seen any judicial rulings stating that the Devil, Satan, Satanism or Devil worship is unconstituional?"

Nope. Haven't seen any judicial rulings stating that Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, or any other type of worship is unconstitutional, either.

I *have* seen rulings that state that such worship is unconstitutional when led by the government. So far, the only type of worship I've heard of any government official or employee try to lead (except for armed forces chaplains in their official capacity) has been Christian. If a government official or employee is leading Devil worship, I should think that would fail the Constitutional test as well. Are you aware of any such circumstance?

"I'm surprised, with your views expressed here, I'd think you'd be a hero or a shero over on the dark side."

Nope. Over there, I was criticized because I (as a Boy Scout leader) came out in favor of the BSA's right to ban gays as leaders if they so chose. To some, this apparently meant that I wanted to sew yellow triangles on homosexuals' sleeves, etc., was in favor of gay youth suicides, blah blah blah. Which is not to say there weren't some reasonable people on there as well. But the extremist element didn't like me.

I was asking questions like, "What do you think might happen on a campout if some gay kid made advances to a straight kid? Do you expect that 15-year old gay kids have some kind of magic maturity that will keep them from making errors in judgement that some of the 50-year old straight adults make? And, don't forget, these kids all have knives." I was accused of thinking that all gay kids were sex fiends. I tried to point out that all it took would be one kid in 100 to make a mistake, and there'd be hell to pay. Some people listened, some didn't. Kind of like on FR.

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