Litigation

Polarized Senate and ?Disorder in Court?

By Peter Hardin

There was a sudden burst of media coverage and commentary after the Senate Judiciary Committee voted again this week to recommend confirmation of four of President Obama’s judicial nominees, including his most controversial pick, Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu (see Gavel Grab).

The coverage offers an updated snapshot of the polarized politics surrounding judicial nominations. Accordingly, Gavel Grab will sum it up here–after quoting from the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog about why the judicial vacancy backlog caused by partisanship is important:

“The real victims in this? How shall we count the ways? The American taxpayers; other federal judges, who have to labor on short-handed; people awaiting disposition of their cases; the nominees themselves, who spend months, if not years, in purgatory. It just goes on and on ?.”

An Associated Press article was headlined, “Democrats say GOP blocking votes for nominees to lower courts, call tactic unprecedented.” Three nominees approved by the committee want to sit on federal district courts, and they have run into heavy GOP opposition. Protested Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island (photo above left):

“Traditionally, when two home state senators approved a nominee…they got a straight up-or-down vote without procedural obstruction.

“Erecting a blockade for a district court nominee is a new threshold we will cross. Once that tiger is let out of a cage, it will never get back in.”

But senior committee Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama (photo above right) contended that home-state senators’ support alone doesn’t qualify a judge for a lifetime appointment. Sessions went on to blast Obama:

“There is no question that the president, a former liberal law professor, intends to pack the courts with as many activists who will promote his vision of what America should be as he can.

“But Republicans will not stand quietly by and allow the rule of law in America to be historically altered by a federal judiciary that is agenda-oriented. If anything, we have been far too generous with our consent.”

NPR predicted about the nominees sent to the Senate floor this week, “It’s far from clear when their confirmations will be voted on by the full Senate.” Even Asian-American activists who rallied in San Francisco and Los Angeles in support of Liu and federal district court nominee Edward Chen this week were uncertain what will happen, NPR reported.

A Politico headline, meanwhile, gave a colorful take: “Senate sparks disorder in court.”

It was left to the WSJ Law Blog to condemn the theatrics at the Capitol:

“Is there any political process more dysfunctional than the judicial-appointment process?

“For those of us who reside outside the Beltway, it can be a torturous spectacle to watch. The predictable name-calling, the tedious back and forth in and out of committee, the Senatorial grandstanding, the overheated flood of press releases that follow every development. As far as we?re concerned, it?s politics at its least attractive. And as we?ve written before, both parties are at fault.”

To learn more about the impact of partisan politics on judicial nominations, see the JAS issues page on the topic. To learn about Obama’s record on judicial nominations and about the backlog, click here for Gavel Grab.

Full post as published by The Gavel on September 24, 2010 (boomark / email).