Litigation

Editorial: Judicial Vacancies Imperil Justice

By Peter Hardin

There’s enough political blame to go around, but the bottom line is that the failure to fill vacant federal judgeships hurts the delivery of justice in the United States, a Los Angeles Times editorial warns.

The editorial relies on an earlier article in the same newspaper reporting that almost one out of eight federal judgeships are vacant (see Gavel Grab). The editorial concludes that Senate Republicans are not solely responsible:

“Obama has the right to blame Republicans for stalling confirmation of all but 42 of his 87 nominees. But his credibility is undermined by the fact that he has been slow to nominate judges. Of 104 judgeships now vacant, nominations are pending for only 39 seats. (An additional nomination was made for a pending vacancy.)”

The editorial goes on to score the role of partisan politics in stalling federal judicial nominees:

“For too many senators, appointees to the federal bench are political pawns, to be played ? or kept off the board ? to score points against the opposing party. For lawyers and litigants, however, judges delayed means justice denied. Obama needs to remind the Senate, and himself, of that truth.”

You can learn more about the impact of political partisanship on federal judgeships from Justice at Stake?s issues page on the topic, and you can read about the Obama administration?s track record in these earlier Gavel Grab posts. To read about a letter by JAS and two other reform groups urging efforts to reduce the growing judicial nominations backlog, click here.

Full post as published by The Gavel on September 06, 2010 (boomark / email).