Republicans Charge Obama With Court-Packing For Trying To Fill Empty Seats
WASHINGTON -- Republican senators are fuming about President Barack Obama's attempt to fill empty seats on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, charging him with "court-packing" and alleging that his push to confirm nominees is all politics.
But
not only is Obama not "court-packing" -- a term describing an attempt to add judges to a court with the goal of shifting the balance, not filling existing vacancies -- but Republicans' efforts to prevent Obama from appointing judges amount to their own attempt to tip the scales in their favor. What's more, some of the GOP senators trying to prevent his nominees from advancing previously voted to fill the court when there was a Republican in the White House.
As it stands, the powerful D.C. Circuit has 11 seats, three of which are vacant. Obama has signaled plans to put forward nominees for all three open slots as soon as this week. But Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and other Republicans are pushing legislation that would eliminate those seats and keep the court where it is: with eight judges, four of whom were appointed by Democrats and four of whom were appointed by Republicans.
Grassley has argued that the court simply doesn't need to have three more judges because it has a lighter workload than other circuit courts -- a stance that Democrats say overlooks the fact that the court is second in stature only to the Supreme Court and takes on particularly complex cases. But Grassley has also suggested that Obama is trying to pack the court.
-snip-
Full article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/28/obama-court-packing_n_3347961.html
What Makes the D.C. Circuit Different?
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Published: May 31, 2013
Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, is pushing a bill misleadingly called the Court Efficiency Act, which would eliminate three unfilled seats on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Next week, President Obama is expected to nominate three highly qualified lawyers for those seats, to bring the court to its full complement of 11 active judges. The Senate should confirm them quickly.
Senator Grassley insists that the District of Columbia court “is the least busy circuit in the country.” But that is simply not true, if measured by the number of pending appeals divided by the number of active judges. By that count, the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, encompassing seven states in the Midwest, including Iowa, has the lowest workload of any circuit. That was apparently of no concern to the senator when he recently helped speed through the confirmation of Jane Kelly to the court.
Arguing about the caseload, however, misses the point. As Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. explained in a 2005 lecture — “What Makes the D.C. Circuit Different?” — the court has a “special responsibility to review legal challenges to the conduct of the national government.” Because of that role, about two-thirds of the cases before the D.C. Circuit involve the federal government in some civil capacity, a far greater percentage than are before other appeals courts in the system.
-snip-
Full OP-ed here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/opinion/what-makes-the-dc-circuit-different.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
