ABA Showdown
By Curt Levey Posted in Judiciary Committee — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
It looks like tomorrow’s Judicial Nominations Hearing in the Judiciary Committee will be the long-awaited showdown between Republican senators critical of the ABA’s performance in rating nominees – e.g., Chairman Specter – and the people responsible for those ratings. No fewer than six current and former members of the rating committee – the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary – are among tomorrow’s witnesses, including its Chair, Roberta Liebenberg. It is no coincidence that both of the nominees getting hearings tomorrow were rated unqualified by the ABA. Mike Wallace, nominated to the Fifth Circuit, received a virtually unprecedented “unanimously unqualified” rating, while in the case of Vanessa Bryant, a nominee to the district court in Connecticut, a “substantial majority” of the rating committee found her to be unqualified.
For more on the problems with the ABA rating committee, see this recent article by Ed Whelan.
I love
by War_Priest
a good barroom brawl. If the hearing is broadcast on capitolhearings.org, I think I'll listen in.
Gee, does that mean it will run into the night or that they'll get less done before calling a it a day and heading off to dinner....
The change from 2 to 3:30
by War_Priest
appears to have been becasue of the business meeting which is scheduled for 2:30. The non-SCOTUS hearings don't usually last longer than an hour anyway. Admittedly, the list of witnesses is particularly long here. We'll see how deep into the witness roster they get.
I am hoping that Specter gives them a beat down on this situation especially in regards to anonymous witnesses. This is America right?