Free Republic

Reporting from Washington — Two of President Obama's choices for the federal bench in California have been dealt a setback, as the Senate adjourned for a month and sent back to the White House the nominations of UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu and San Francisco Magistrate Edward M. Chen.

Ralph Neas is at it again. Armed with an overflowing treasure chest of donations from the Hollywood Left, union bosses, and trial lawyers, People for the American Way president Ralph Neas is orchestrating the activities of more than 10,000 Democratic attorneys in battleground states. Using the coalition of leftist organizations brought together through years of trench warfare over judicial nominations and a database of attorneys, Neas is working to successfully accuse Republicans of suppressing voters. The lawsuits in Florida have already begun. With 2,000 lawyers dispatched to that state alone, this was certainly bound to happen. Nine lawsuits have been...

No, Sen. Santorum, Catholics aren’t a protected classOkay, I think I get the idea. Republicans are very upset that Senate Democrats have held together enough to sideline three of President Bush’s most hard-line conservative judicial nominees. That unity anticipates similar steadfastness in the face of hard-line nominations to the Supreme Court if and when Bush gets the chance. And all that complaining about Democratic filibustering — whether justified or not — never caught on with voters. But that’s still no excuse for the ridiculous charges that Democrats are acting out of anti-Catholic bias or bigotry when opposing Alabama Attorney General...

THAT SENATE DEMOCRATS are mulling whether to filibuster the nomination of Miguel Estrada is a telling measure of their reduced power to block Bush judges. Thanks to the midterm elections, Republicans now hold a two-seat majority in the Senate. And in the Judiciary Committee the 10-to-9 advantage the Democrats enjoyed for most of the last two years now belongs to the Republicans. Under the Democrats, the committee aggressively challenged Bush's choices for the federal bench, twice defeating nominees on party-line votes. Last week, for the first time in the new Congress, the committee voted on a judicial nominee--Estrada, who's been...

Charles Pickering is one of 30 names submitted this afternoon by President Bush for nomination to the Federal bench...

Martini gets OK as federal judge MITCHEL MADDUX Former Rep. Bill Martini has been confirmed as a New Jersey federal judge by the U.S. Senate. Martini, 55, a Republican who lives in Clifton and practices law in Newark, is a former federal prosecutor who also has served as a Passaic County freeholder. A member of a prominent Passaic County family long involved in politics, he serves as a commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Martini will have to resign from the agency, and Governor McGreevey will name his replacement on the 12-person board. Martini said...

Apr 8, 2002 LOS ANGELES (AP) - A federal judge on Monday threw out a 28-year-old quota system for hiring city firefighters, saying it had "outlasted its purpose." The system, part of a consent decree entered into by the city and the U.S. Department of Justice, was created in 1974 to diversify a fire department that was about 90 percent white. U.S. District Judge Harry L. Hupp granted the city's request to terminate the consent decree. The city filed the request after rejected white applicants challenged its provisions. "I think it's beneficial to anybody who believes applicants should be judged...