Political rhetoric over federal judges heats up
by James Oliphant
The calm couldn't last. Almost three years after the Senate confirmed two Supreme Court justices and rescued the judicial filibuster as part of an innovative bipartisan agreement, tensions are again rising over judicial nominations.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) Monday threw down the gauntlet on behalf of Republicans. In a lengthy floor speech, Specter complained that the Democratic majority in the Senate hadn't done enough to advance President Bush's picks for judgeships to the floor. "The conduct of the Senate today is elevating ideology and ego above substance," Specter said.
Specter pointed to statistics that said that during the last two years of President Clinton's term, the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed 15 circuit nominees and 57 district court nominees, while since the Democrats took over the Senate in 2005, Bush has been successful in confirming only six circuit court nominees and 34 district court nominees. Specter said a judicial "emergencies" exist, with key federal appellate and district slots remaining vacant for years and slowing litigation to a crawl.
Both parties however, Specter said, share the blame:
It is plain that since the last two years of President Reagan's administration until the present day, the confirmation process has broken down whenever the White House has been controlled by one party and the Senate controlled by the other party. In the last two years of the Reagan administration, the judicial confirmation process broke down. In the four years of the administration of President George H. W. Bush, the confirmation process was riveted with partisanship.
When Republicans gained control of the Senate starting in January of 1995, during the last 6 years of the administration of President Clinton, the Republican Senate retaliated, and more than retaliated; it exacerbated the problem. Then, when the administration of President George W. Bush came, the Democrats were in control for about a year and a half of that process. Again, the process was stymied.
Then it got even worse. Then, even though the Republicans had gained control of the Senate, after the 2002 elections, there were filibusters, which were very destructive to the Senate. Then, there was a very serious challenge to the filibuster rule. The Democrats were filibustering President Bush's nominees and Republicans responded with a so-called constitutional or nuclear option to change the filibuster rule to reduce the number from 60 to 51.
The so-called "nuclear option"" was a Republican proposal to eliminate the ability of the minority party to filibuster a judicial nominee. A bipartisan compromise in 2005 took that option off the table in exchange for the confirmation of several judges. (Sen. John McCain's role as a member of the so-called "Gang of 14" that secured the agreement has been one reason why he is viewed with suspicion by hardcore conservatives.)
A moderate, Specter said he crossed party lines several times to support Democratic nominees and he wondered why more Democrats weren't willing to do the same for qualifed Bush nominees.
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