(Despot) Bush to Deride Approval Process for Judicial Nominees

Bush to Deride Approval Process for Judicial Nominees

Holly Rosenkrantz and Greg Stohr
50 minutes ago

Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush, in a speech tonight, will say the confirmation process for federal judges has become a ``license to ruin the good name'' of nominees and will deride what he says has become a trend toward judicial activism.


``The Senate is no longer asking the right questions,'' Bush will tell the Federalist Society, a Washington-based group of conservative and libertarian lawyers, according to excerpts released by the White House. ``Nominees are asked to guarantee specific outcomes of cases that might come before the court.''

Bush is pressing the Democratic-controlled Senate to fill U.S. appeals court vacancies before he leaves office in January 2009. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in September that only nominees with the support of both Republicans and Democratic Senate leaders will be confirmed. There are 14 federal appeals-court vacancies, and five appellate judges have been confirmed so far this year.

Bush, in his remarks tonight in Washington, will suggest that the Senate is falling short of its constitutional duties by failing to confirm more of his nominees. Congress must ``meet its responsibilities and resist the temptation to encroach on the powers the Constitution accords to the others,'' he will say.

more

Holsinger’s nomination, opposed by several leading Democrats, has stalled in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. But Holsinger is telling people the president plans to appoint him to the post anyway once the Congress goes into its holiday recess.