A project tracking federal judicial nominations and courts.
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 Editorials and Opinion
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Act with dispatch to ease federal courts' vacancy burden (Philadelphia Inquirer [PA], 02/06/12)
Op- Ed by former Third Circtui Judge Timothy K. Lewis: "As a former federal judge, I know the toll this persistently high vacancy rate takes on our courts. ...limiting the access people have to the judicial system, often resulting in exasperating delays for all parties involved.
In many states, senators' unprecedented obstruction on the chamber floor has perpetuated this crisis, preventing the confirmation of highly qualified nominees with bipartisan support. In Pennsylvania, to avert an even more serious crisis, Casey and Toomey must act with dispatch to propose nominees to fill these vacancies. ... "Justice delayed is justice denied" isn't just an old legal maxim - it should be a rallying call to action."
The Judicial Confirmation Crisis in One Easy Chart (People For blog, 02/06/12)
"We hope this chart helps:... These nominees have no recorded Republican opposition – instead, the GOP is stalling them just for the sake of stalling.
Fourteen of the nineteen nominees are women or people of color. Nine have been nominated to fill seats officially designated as judicial emergencies. All of them deserve prompt up-or-down votes from the Senate."
Our Views: Nominees need vote (Advocate [Baton Rouge, LA], 02/06/12)
Editorial: "one idea probably won’t get anywhere but should: A quick vote in the Senate on key presidential nominees.... ever-longer delays of confirmation by the Senate, aided by the Senate rules that make individual senators mini-despots of appointments in their own states, are a national scandal. That is particularly true in judicial nominations. Every lawyer in federal practice in Louisiana can tell you the names of highly qualified individuals of both parties who were nominated for the federal courts but never got to a vote, sometimes not even the courtesy of a hearing. Instead, the parties and sometimes individual senators have used their procedural powers to delay nominations until nominees withdraw, or until the next election — when, it is hoped by the delayers, that jobs can be filled with folks of their own party."
Editorial: Politics and the Supreme Court (New York Times, 02/05/12)
"The Supreme Court underscored its power to shape American life when it took major cases about the health care reform law, Arizona’s anti-immigrant law and the Voting Rights Act in an election year. But this is not simply a case of the court thrusting itself into politics.
The way these cases developed and made their way to the highest court also illustrates the reverse — how politics shape the court. Each case grows out of a struggle between left and right where politics have pushed the law ... the conservative legal battles of our modern times are being waged by the most powerful, often against the weak and oppressed. They began with a carefully planned and successful effort to reshape the courts to be sympathetic to conservative causes. They are largely aimed at narrowing rights, not expanding them — except where property and guns are concerned."
Senate GOP: Activist Federal Judges Wanted; The hypocrisy of a group of Republicans who are supporting the lawsuit against Obama's recess appointments (Atlantic, 02/05/12)
Andrew Cohen: "There is something deliciously hypocritical about the brief letter 40 Senate Republicans made public Friday announcing their intention to file a "friend of the court" brief in one of the federal lawsuits challenging President Barack Obama's recent recess appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board. The gang that decries "judicial activism" at every opportunity now wants the federal courts to activate on their behalf to broker a political dispute between the executive and legislative branches. They know exactly how many of the President's qualified judicial nominees have been held up by the threat of filibuster."
EDITORIAL: Fix confirmation process; Merkley’s proposal would expedite nominations (Register Guard [OR] , 02/05/12)
"Republican senators now are blocking votes on 18 of President Obama’s judicial nominees, most of them uncontroversial candidates who were approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee.... Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., introduced a bill that would require a critical mass of senators — at least 10 — to start a filibuster and to speak continuously the floor if they want to block a nominee....Obstructionists in both parties have used the filibuster to halt confirmations and to extort concessions from the opposition. An example of the latter was the Republicans’ recent blockage of a confirmation vote for Richard Cordray ... . Both parties — and the nation — would benefit from a curtailment of the filibuster abuses that have made a mockery of the concept of majority rule and the Senate’s constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent on presidential nominations."
Editorial: Crying wolf; [Sen.] Lee’s bent view of the Constitution (Salt Lake Tribune [UT] , 02/04/12)
"Mike Lee is crying wolf.
The junior senator from the state of Utah has gone all ballistic over the fact that President Obama has a marginally different interpretation of the Constitution than he does.
Lee is so hot and bothered about it that he is calling Obama a tyrant, comparing the appointment of a mid-level bureaucrat to Pearl Harbor and boasting that he will single-handedly block the Senate from doing its job until the duly elected president of the United States starts following the orders of one one-hundredth of one half of one third of the federal government: Namely, himself....Lee is not only embarrassing himself and his home state. He is also helping the president and his fellow Democrats to paint Lee and his fellow Republicans as obstructionists and tools of Wall Street.... Lee is not doing himself, the public or the Constitution any favors. He needs to give it up."
Senate GOP Still Fighting A War On Smart Judges (Think Progress, 02/03/12)
Ian Millhiser: "when President Obama nominated former Supreme Court law clerk Paul Watford to a federal judgeship last October, ThinkProgress worried that he too would prove too qualified to be confirmed. Sadly, our fears seem justified. Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee cast an entirely party-line vote to advance Watford to the full Senate — an action which, in the past, has proceeded a GOP filibuster. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was given the unfortunate task of devising a flimsy rationale for opposing the nomination:... Watford worked for two clients that Grassley disagrees with, and this fact evermore disqualifies him for a seat on the federal courts.
It’s impossible to describe how dangerous this standard is."
Senators Signal Opposition to Another Ninth Circuit Nominee (American Constitution Society Blog, 02/03/12)
Nicole Flatow: "The 10-6 party-line vote (with two Republicans voting “present”) seems to signal an about-face from the broad bipartisan support Watford received when he was nominated in October. ... there are now four vacancies considered judicial emergencies on the Ninth Circuit and 86 vacancies overall on the federal courts.
In a letter to senators last year, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski and a number of other Ninth Circuit judges implored the Senate to "act on judicial nominees without delay," citing a “desperate need for judges.”
“Courts cannot do their work if authorized judicial positions remain vacant,” the letter said."
Sen. Mike Lee’s Also Fundraising Off His Own Obstructionist Tantrum (Think Progress, 02/02/12)
Ian Millhiser: "Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) doesn’t just think that President Obama’s decision to recess appoint four consumer and worker protection officials is a lot like Pearl Harbor, he also thinks it is a great opportunity to raise campaign funds."
A Date Which Will Live in Infamy (New York Times, 02/02/12)
Andrew Rosenthal: Sen. Mike Lee, the Utah Republican, tweeted the following yesterday afternoon: “Jan. 4, 2012, may well be a day that will live on in infamy, as a day the Congress ceded one of its rightful powers to the executive.”
This was alarming. What did the President do on January 4 that would warrant a comparison to Pearl Harbor? ... The president tapped Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and filled several vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board, angering Republicans lawmakers who’d been holding pro-forma sessions specifically to prevent these recess appointments. ... [Sen. Lee's] willing to take both the federal government and the judiciary hostage in his petty battle with the president."
Mike Lee the usurper (Salt Lake Tribune [UT] , 02/02/12)
John Grimes, Letter: "Shame on Sen. Mike Lee for blocking the Senate from voting on all of President Barack Obama’s nominees. Lee is a part of the federal government; it’s his job to make it work, not to run it into the ditch.
Obama was elected president, and he and every president deserves to have nominees properly considered and voted on. What kind of system gives one single senator the ability to stop the other 99 from even voting on a nominee? This was not intended by the inspired Founding Fathers Lee says he so reveres."
Sen. Mike Lee Compares Recess Appointments To Pearl Habor — ‘A Day That Will Live On In Infamy’ (Think Progress, 02/02/12)
Ian Millhiser: "Tea Party Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) threatened to exact revenge for President Obama’s decision to recess appoint four officials by engaging in a scorched earth campaign of obstruction against each of the president’s nominees. In an apparent effort to cede what little remaining credibility he has on this issue, he then followed this threat up yesterday by comparing Obama’s decision to appoint four consumer and worker protection officials to an unprovoked attack that killed 2,402 Americans and thrust America into the final four years of a bitter world war"
Stop Over-the-Top Attacks on the Office of Legal Counsel, and Focus on Governing (Huffington Post, 02/02/12)
Caroline Fredrickson, President, American Constitution Society for Law and Policy: "Grassley's over-the-top reaction to Seitz's eminently reasonable interpretation of the law is unfortunately too typical of the atmosphere prevailing in this Congress. Utah Sen. Mike Lee has responded to the recess appointments by declaring he'll work single-handedly to obstruct all presidential nominations. During this week's House hearing on the recess appointments, Lee tweeted that Jan. 4 -- when the president made those appointments -- "may well be a day that will live on in infamy as a day the Congress ceded one of its rightful powers to the executive."
Please -- cut the hyperbole, senators, and get back to work."
Lee a tea party fool (Salt Lake Tribune [UT] , 02/01/12)
Jack D. Birch, Letter: "If you’ve wondered why nothing gets accomplished in Washington anymore, just peruse the Jan. 28 Sunday Tribune. On Page A3 is an article in which our Sen. Mike Lee vows to oppose any federal and judicial appointments by President Barack Obama! (“Obama takes aim at Lee in nominee fight, Tribune, Jan. 29)
This surely doesn’t sound like democracy at work to me. In my 64 years of experience, compromise is always part of the bigger picture."
Senator Mike Lee: Constitutional Charlatan (Huffington Post, 02/01/12)
Doug Kendall, Founder and President, Constitutional Accountability Center: "In justifying his threat to obstruct the confirmation of every single Obama judicial nominee in response to the President's recess appointment of Richard Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) had the chutzpah this weekend to lecture President Obama about the fact that the "Constitution is not a partisan document." That's rich, coming from a tea party hero whose very career has been built by weaponizing the Constitution for political purposes.... Senator Lee is demonstrating contempt for the document he purports to revere by reacting to this sorry state of affairs by (1) ignoring his complicity in the problem, (2) lecturing the President for politicizing the Constitution -- something Senator Lee has turned into an art form -- and (3) taking out his anger with the President by compounding the Senate's partisan dysfunction and punishing the third branch of government. With friends like Senator Mike Lee, the Constitution needs no enemies."
Editorial: Rule bending is strangling governance (Longmont Daily Times-Call [CO], 01/31/12)
"Right now, 85 federal judgeships are open -- and 18 appointments to fill those seats remain in limbo even though they have been vetted and passed through committee. "
Charles Grassley’s Curious Obsession (New York Times, 01/31/12)
Andrew Rosenthal, Times’s editorial page editor: "Mr. Grassley not only failed to attack Mr. Yoo or Mr. Bybee, he also supported the policies the memos were cooked up to justify. He later voted to authorize warrantless surveillance of Americans’ phone calls and email messages. When President Bush rewarded Mr. Bybee for his political loyalty by nominating him to a lifetime appointment on the federal appeals court, Mr. Grassley voted “yes.”
So, he thinks it’s an outrage to find legal justification to make temporary appointments so that government can function. But he thinks it’s just fine to use executive authority to arrest people at whim and hold them without trial, torture prisoners, and ignore the Fourth Amendment and the federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by spying on American citizens without a warrant. ... Pretty scary."
Obstruction Has a Name, and It’s Senator Mike Lee (Daily Kos, 01/31/12)
Amy K. Matsui, Senior Counsel, National Womens Law Center: "Utah Senator Mike Lee has forthrightly owned up to his recent decision to block all judicial and executive branch nominations.... For judicial nominations alone, there are 18 judicial nominees waiting for Senate action – including David Nuffer, a nominee to a district court in Senator Lee’s home state of Utah, where the court is so overburdened that the vacancy has been deemed a “judicial emergency.” There are also 21 judicial nominees left over from 2011 who did not get through the Senate Judiciary Committee process in time, AND as of now, three new 2012 judicial nominees. When you add them all up, it’s becoming apparent that Senator Lee is single-handedly manufacturing a one-man shutdown of the court system."
Senators work for confirmation (Omaha World-Herald [NE] , 01/31/12)
Prof. Carl Tobias Letter: "Sens. Nelson and Johanns cooperated to ensure the confirmation of Judge John Gerrard, an excellent jurist who will replace Judge Kopf on the Nebraska District Court.
The Nebraska senators afforded a great model of cooperation for their 98 colleagues. The confirmation wars must end for the good of the nation."
Turning Up the Heat for Justice (Blue Oregon, 01/31/12)
Evan Manvel: "What is unique is the level of obstructionism by the Republicans on Obama's judicial nominees. ... What can we do? Add your voice to those Americans who want judicial nominees moved forward."
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