Why The Confirmation Of An Outstanding Judge Still Proves The Senate Is Terrible (Think Progress, 04/25/13)
Ian Millhiser: "It is fantastic news that Kelly is now a judge. Beyond the fact that she is talented and that she adds another name to the short list of potential Supreme Court nominees in a Democratic administration, former public defenders are very rare on the federal bench ... But a person shouldn’t have to be friends with a guy who is friends with Chuck Grassley in order to avoid a grueling confirmation process."

Confirming Eighth Circuit Judge, Sen. Leahy Blasts Effort to Hobble D.C. Circuit (American Constitution Society Blog, 04/24/13)
Jeremy Leaming: "Senate Republicans led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-K.Y.) have stuck to agenda of obstruction.... Grassley unveiled his plan to keep the D.C. Circuit from shifting much in ideology – currently the court tilts rightward and has proved hostile to federal regulations, such as efforts to enforce the Clean Air and Clean Water laws. Grassley claims the D.C. Circuit has too many judges and a light caseload. He has introduced a bill to slash the number of judges to eight. If Grassley and the other obstructionists have their way, Obama will be fortunate to get one nominee confirmed to the D.C. Circuit.... The Judicial Conference of the United States, chaired by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. in an April 5 letter, Leahy noted, recommended keeping the D.C. Circuit’s 11 judgeships. Moreover, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has noted the Circuit’s caseload has “increased by 50 percent since 2005.” Regarding caseloads of the federal appeals court circuits, Leahy noted that with Kelly’s confirmation, the “Eighth Circuit will have the lowest number of pending appeals per active judge of any circuit in the country. Yes, lower than the D.C. Circuit.” Leahy then rattled off the scores of judicial nominations the Senate obstructionists have delayed or scuttled during Obama’s presidency, leading to a vacancy rate that has hovered at 80 or above for several years now."

Prioritize appointing U.S. judges (Cincinnati Enquirer [OH] , 04/21/13)
By Laurel Bellows, president of the American Bar Association: "With 86 (one in 10) vacancies on our federal bench and with 37 vacant judgeships qualifying as judicial emergencies, the time for collaboration and compromise is now."

Seib & Wessel: What We’re Reading Tuesday (Wall Street Journal, 04/20/13)
Recommended reading from around the Web, by Gerald F. Seib and David Wessel: "Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) looks at the rash of vacant federal judgeships around the country–82 vacant federal judge slots—and notes that for a startling 61 of them there hasn’t even been a nominee put forward to the Senate. But she says that isn’t simply because President Obama isn’t moving; a large part of the problem is that Republican senators aren’t nominating judges for district court nominees, which by tradition, they recommend. [Huffington Post]"

President and Congress must act to fill judicial vacancies (The Hill, 04/17/13)
By Laurel Bellows, president, American Bar Association: "With 86 (one in 10) vacancies on our federal bench and with 37 vacant judgeships qualifying as judicial emergencies, the time for collaboration and compromise is now. ... Real costs are often borne by businesses whose viability relies on the timely resolution of commercial disputes, by defendants who lose jobs and sometimes family ties while languishing behind bars awaiting trial, and, ultimately, the public that expects courts to deliver on the promise of justice for all. 
Our economy depends on courts to enforce contracts, protect property and determine liability. Judicial vacancies increase caseloads per judge, creating delays that jeopardize the ability of courts to expeditiously deliver judgments. Delay translates into costs for litigants. Delay results in uncertainty that discourages growth and investment. With 60 percent more judicial vacancies at present than in January 2009 and pending civil cases in U.S. District Courts 7 percent higher than in 2005, vacancies are potential job-killers.

 ... As a first step, Democrats and Republicans should schedule up-or-down floor votes for those 13 nominees favorably reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee with little or no opposition.

 Second, the 11 nominees who were pending on the floor when the 112th Congress adjourned should be fast-tracked.... Next, the Senate majority and minority leaders should agree to prioritize filling judicial emergencies and shorten the period of time between nomination and votes. ... Finally, the White House should offer a nominee for every open seat on the bench. The many vacancies and anticipated vacancies warrant making judicial vacancies a priority this year."

Did Senator Grassley Not Check His Inbox? -- His Proposal to Gut the D.C. Circuit Ignores the Judicial Conference (Text & History, 04/17/13)
Judith E. Schaeffer: "That Senator Grassley’s proposal to eliminate the 9th, 10th, and 11th seats on the D.C. Circuit is a partisan ploy is evidenced not only by the numbers but also because it is not based on any study and in fact ignores recent recommendations of the Judicial Conference to Congress regarding the number of judgeships on the federal courts. By letter of April 5, 2013 to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, a copy of which was also sent to Senator Grassley, the Judicial Conference transmitted to the 113th Congress “the Conference’s Article III and bankruptcy judgeship recommendations and corresponding draft legislation for the 113th Congress.” With respect to the circuit courts, these recommendations include the addition of four judges to the Ninth Circuit and one to the Sixth Circuit; there is no recommendation to eliminate any of the judgeships on the D.C. Circuit or to leave any of that court’s vacancies unfilled. In addition, the Judicial Conference has not made any recommendation to add any judges to the Second or 11th Circuits. Senator Grassley’s proposal would not only gut the D.C. Circuit, it would move two of that court’s judgeships to courts where the Judicial Conference has not said they are needed. Senator Grassley’s proposal is based solely on a numeric comparison of cases pending per judge in the D.C. Circuit and in the Second and 11th Circuits. But this comparison wrongly assumes that the typical D.C. Circuit case is similar to the typical case in any other Circuit. It isn’t; Senator Grassley is comparing apples to oranges."

'Filibus[t]er wars' must come to an end (Des Moines Register [IA] , 04/17/13)
Carl Tobias: "reflect the judicial vacancy crisis that has left the courts with almost 90 vacancies for more than three years and the D.C Circuit with four of 11 judgeships empty. ... The filibuster wars must cease for the good of the nation, the bench and federal court litigants."

9th Circuit: Final L.A. Dist. Court Vacancy Filled by O'Connell (Findlaw, 04/16/13)
U.S. Ninth Circuit blog by William Peacock, Esq.: "Lucky us. Across this fine nation, there are 84 vacancies in federal courts, 68 in U.S. District Courts, and 16 on U.S. Courts of Appeal, according to the fine folks at Courthouse News Service. If you've been following judicial appointments at all in the past couple years, you'll recognize that even when an appointment is made, the Senate refuses to confirm. Good old gridlock. Superior Court Judge Beverly Reid O'Connell finally cleared that gridlock on her second trip through the Senate confirmation process, by a vote of 92-0. That unanimous margin itself illustrates how uncontroversial her appointment was and how ridiculous things are in Washington D.C."

VIDEO INTERVIEW: [FEDERAL CIRCUIT] JUDGE PAUL MICHEL ON USPTO AND CONGRESS (Managing Intellectual Property, 04/15/13)
Transcript: "In terms of what could Congress have done more constructively? it could have filled 100 judicial vacancies in the District Court; it could have increased the number of judgeships which the judiciary has been asking for for over 20 years and which Congress has refused to do so the mismatch between the workload of judges and the number of judges is severe and has grown worse over time. Cases, filings go up; complexity goes up. The available resources get further and further out of line - that's what Congress should be concentrating on."

Former Kansan’s judicial nomination key for Obama (Wichita Eagle [KS] , 04/15/13)
WE [Editorial Department] Blog by Rhonda Holman: "The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has four vacancies, including, unbelievably, the one created when Chief Justice John Roberts left that bench in 2005. President Obama is hoping his latest nominee for that court, Sri Srinivasan, will avoid a GOP filibuster. Srinivasan, who played basketball in high school with Danny Manning while growing up in Lawrence, is the Obama administration’s principal deputy solicitor general and has been endorsed by the likes of Kenneth Starr. He had an uneventful hearing"

Obama might be holding all the cards: Farmer (Star-Ledger Newark [NJ] , 04/14/13)
John Farmer: "At the same time, Republicans are blocking or threatening to block a series of Obama nominees to judicial and executive positions. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) would go even further where judges are concerned. Despite a backlog of cases at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, second only to the U.S. Supreme Court in importance, Grassley proposes eliminating three still-vacant seats on the court. Why? To prevent Obama from filing them with judges not vetted by the tea party, the NRA, the Heritage Foundation, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News and the rest of the ultra-conservative cabal."

On the News With Thom Hartmann (Truthout, 04/13/13)
Jim Javinsky: "For decades, Republicans have stacked the courts with their right-wing buddies. And when the other side tries to add some balance, the GOP's not only blocks appointments, but wants to eliminate the judgeship altogether. On Wednesday, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Sri Srinivasan to the D.C. Circuit court, Senator Chuck Grassley introduced legislation to reduce the number of judges on that bench from 11 seats to eight. Grassley's argument is that the D.C. Circuit is the least busy court in our nation, so they shouldn't need as many judges to handle the caseload. As The Think Progress Blog points out, the D.C. Circuit does have a smaller caseload, but it's responsible for deciding many major regulatory and national security cases. As Republicans have refused to confirm any of President Obama's nominees, one of the most powerful courts in our nation currently has four vacant seats. This is a typical Republican tactic. Regardless of whether it's an election or a court battle, if you can't win on the issues, just cheat."

Grassley's big idea: Don't block the nominee, do away with the nominee's seat (Daily Kos, 04/11/13)
Joan McCarter: "Sen. Chuck Grassley and friends have a novel answer to the problem of the chronic filibustering of nominees to the the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit: remove the seats from the Court which haven't been filled."

Sen. Grassley’s ‘Court Fracking’ Scheme (American Constitution Society Blog, 04/11/13)
John Schachter: "Court fracking: (noun) the insertion of blatant politics into the judicial system to extract seats on the nation’s second most important court (i.e., the D.C. Circuit) eliminating one and dispersing others to dilute the potential impact of progressive jurists. ... Grassley is peddling the myth that the court’s workload doesn’t justify the larger number of seats. ... Of course, Grassley had no hesitation supporting and voting for all of President Bush’s nominees to that court. And Grassley conveniently ignores the fact that the D.C. Circuit’s cases are often far more complex than the other circuits, so raw numbers of cases are quite misleading."

Grassley Proposes Eliminating 3 Seats On Powerful Court To Keep Obama From Filling Them (Think Progress, 04/10/13)
Ian Millhiser: "Grassley’s statistics are highly misleading. Unlike other federal courts of appeal, the DC Circuit hears an unusually large number of major regulatory and national security cases, many of which require very specialized legal research, involve intensely long records, and take more time for a judge to process than four or five normal cases of the kinds heard in other circuits. The caseloads outside of the DC Circuit include many routine sentencing, immigration and other cases of the kinds that are often dispatched with in brief orders drafted by staff attorneys (who then have these orders approved by judges)....In 2005, Grassley voted to confirm Judge Janice Rogers Brown, a Bush appointee to the DC Circuit. Brown was the tenth active judge on the DC Circuit when she took her seat. Shortly thereafter, Grassley voted to confirm Judge Thomas Griffith. Griffith was the eleventhactive judge on the DC Circuit at the time of his confirmation. Now that President Obama is naming judges, however, Grassley suddenly thinks the DC Circuit is so underworked that it needs just eight judges. This isn’t credible."