Posted on 09/02/2003 6:09:59 AM PDT by jmstein7
The story is familiar: Democratic senators, including our own, are blocking President Bush's nominees to federal courts. They are making a vacancy crisis worse: 15 of the stalled nominees are for vacancies declared "judicial emergencies" by the Judicial Conference of the United States.
All of the president's appeals court nominees have received the American Bar Association's top ratings, "qualified" and "well qualified," yet only 53 percent have been confirmed, compared with 90 percent during the same period for the last three presidencies.
The senators are doing a great disservice to the country by discouraging others who might otherwise be willing to give up comfortable and lucrative private work for a life of government service. They are doing perhaps irreparable damage to the separation and balance of powers crafted by our Founding Fathers by engaging in an unprecedented, arguably unconstitutional filibuster to prevent nominees from ever getting a full Senate vote.
Never in our history has a filibuster been used to block a judicial appointment, until now. But that is all old news. Senate Democrats have been using these tactics and ignoring these complaints for two years.
What is new is that, with an election on the horizon, these ham-handed tactics may have consequences for vulnerable Democrats such as Sen. Patty Murray.
The president's nominees are exceptionally well qualified and enjoy broad bipartisan support. Miguel Estrada is an immigrant from Honduras and would be the first Hispanic on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. He graduated near the top of his Harvard Law School class and has had a distinguished career in government and private practice. His supporters include senior officials in the Clinton administration.
Perhaps more important for Murray, in a recent poll, 88 percent of Hispanics said Estrada should get an up-or-down vote, and 87 percent said he should be confirmed. There has already been a rally in Seattle to protest the Estrada filibuster. Murray cannot afford to lose the support of Washington's growing Hispanic community. If she continues to walk in lockstep with the left wing of her party, she probably will.
Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor also has widespread bipartisan support, and is highly regarded by Georgia's African-American leaders for his stance on civil-rights issues. The chairman of the state Democratic Party's black caucus calls him a "first-class public official" who "will be a credit to the judiciary and will be a guardian for justice."
Despite Pryor's qualifications, Democrats refuse to allow a Senate vote because they don't like his religious beliefs. This frightens people of faith nationwide, because it appears that if some tenets of a person's religion conflict with the agenda of the left wing of the Democratic Party, he or she is disqualified from being a judge: Former Boston Major Ray Flynn, a Democrat, said after reviewing the transcript of Pryor's hearing, "If you are a faithful Catholic ... and you're willing to acknowledge that openly ... that basically disqualifies you, I guess, to be a member of the judiciary."
And in July, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America wrote that they are "deeply troubled that a person of faith cannot serve in a high level government post that may raise issues at odds with his or her personal beliefs."
Perhaps Senate Democrats don't care that the Constitution forbids any religious test for public office. What Murray should care about is that many Catholics are outraged, and they and other people of faith may reject candidates who support this kind of litmus test.
These are not the only nominees being blocked: Eight of the president's first 11 nominees to appeals courts have waited over a year without a Senate vote. Bush nominated to the 9th Circuit Carolyn Kuhl, currently a state court judge in Los Angeles. There is no risk Kuhl will tip the balance of this very liberal court. The 28-judge court currently has 17 judges appointed by Democratic presidents, eight by Republicans, and three vacancies.
U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., has threatened a filibuster, ignoring the extraordinary bipartisan support for Kuhl, including Democrat Vilma Martinez, the former director of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, and NAACP lawyer and Democrat Leo Terrell.
A bipartisan group of nearly 100 judges who serve with Kuhl wrote: "We believe her elevation to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will bring credit to all of us and to the Senate that confirms her. As an appellate judge, she will serve the people of our country with distinction, as she has done as a trial judge." But based on Murray's actions so far, we can expect her to block that nomination, too. That will be nothing new.
The president's appointees have stellar qualifications and bipartisan support, and Democratic senators are alienating mainstream Americans, particularly minorities and religious groups they have counted on in the past. If senators, including our own, do not recognize this, they will feel the results on election night, and that will be some news indeed.
Harry Korrell is a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine in Seattle. He represents clients in state and federal courts in Washington and around the West.
As far as I'm concerned the Pubbies have blown it in the Senate. They had a chance to do something and didn't.
They didn't even try.
I'm fed up with judicial appointments.
As one who had had to live with the mortal embarrassment of being (poorly) represented in Washington by "Osama Mama" Murray for far, far too long: if this actually helps to dynamite her out of her Senate seat, for once and for all... GOOD!
Nope a PO'd Republican in terms of judicial appointments and the party's failure to even try.
They begged to win the Senate just so they could wage the good fight. They haven't done it.
They haven't required a real filibuster. They haven't tried to change the rules (their constitutional right). They haven't even made a public stink.
The Senate is a clubhouse for well-heeled, manipulative, snake oil salesmen.
The RINO's are more than willing to vote with the majority as long as they know the majority will not surmount the filibuster.
The Senate leadership need to make some hardline moves to PROVE that their RINO brethren will hold ranks when the vote is really on the line.
" The Senate is a clubhouse for well-heeled, manipulative, snake oil salesmen."
This is CRITICISM man.
I aint' whining that about something amorphous and vaguely annoying.
I'm saying they haven't done their JOB; nor have they lived up to their promise.
The Senate is peopled with cowards who wouldn't know a principle if it was branded into their backsides.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.