ConfirmThem

I lament the fact that the WH's obstinance to switch seats has delayed this result. It was battle that didn't need to be fought.

The true test of Leahy's commitment to process Bush's nominees will be how quickly he processes Keisler, Hardiman, Livingston and Southwick. Keisler will be the most pivotal of these nominations. Hopefully, Grassley and Sessions will not unite forces with the Dems to block Keisler simply because he is nominated for the 11th seat on the D.C. Circuit.

Any idea as to when Smith might get a Senate hearing and vote?

And when will Livingston get a committee hearing? She was nominated over the summer - it's pretty ridiculous, when you consider she is a rather unobjectionable nominee.

that had been so carefully been negotiated prior to Brownback's attacks on the one judge?

Anybody know?

Here's a good one if Leahy really wants them:

http://law.hofstra.edu/Directory/Faculty/FullTimeFaculty/ftfac_ku.html

looks like he's only in his mid-30s, I seriously doubt the Dems will even have a hearing for someone that young. plus we'd need another seat on the 2nd to open up (and even then I'd rather concentrate on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th circuits). don't think being a visiting professor at W&M will qualify him for the 4th, or that he clerked on there for the 5th. maybe he'd take a district seat to start? but he could be a prospect for the future (depending on what he actually thinks about all that international law he teachs ;))

District Court sounds good. Clinton filled SO MANY of them here in NY. We need Bush to get the opportunity to fill more.

Randy Smith does not need another committee hearing. He already had one in the last congress. It is up to Leahy to decide if nominees with previous hearings will need a second one. He decided NOT to require a second one for Smith. With his committee vote out of the way, Smith is now on the Senate's executive calendar and is eligible for a full Senate vote. Reid has already promised a confirmation vote for Smith BEFORE the Senate recesses for President's Day. He probably will be voted on next Thursday.

It is now time to see if Leahy will require second committee hearings for Keisler and Hardiman, both of whom had their first hearings last Congress. Southwick has already had a hearing as well, but it was for a district court position. It is almost certain that Leahy will require a new hearing for him. Livingston has never had a hearing, which appears odd to me since she was nominated a day before Keisler last year.

BTW, there is still no news about the Michigan Five being renominated.

according to Sen. Specter's recent floor statement about COA apointments over the next 2 years; Mitch McConnell wants 16 more. Both are looking at averages for the last 2 years of the incumbent president's term. (Actually Specter is only considering Clinton's last 2 years) For me, it's all about quality as well as quantity. During Leahy's last gig as SJC chair in the 107th, 12 nominees did not receive so much as a hearing: Roberts, Boyle, 6 6th Cir nominees, Kuhl, Bybee, Tymkovich and Steele. Three others (Estrada,Owen and Pickering had a hearing but no vote). Leahy's committee did approve 17 nominees, but Michael McConnell is the only one of those you've heard of. Can't wait to see what Leahy does with the pending COA nominees.

It will be nice to see Smith approved, but he won't make a dent on the 9th. If you look at the current makeup of the 9th, you will see that Clinton did a nice job at packing that court. It will remain a Clinton Court for another 10 years.

I would rather see the 15-17 picks that we may get (believe it when I see it), used on the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th where they can have more of an impact. Of course the White House needs to make appointments. While I can see where there may be a need for negotiation for the Michigan and Virginia seats (along with a few others), I do not understand why we do not have appointments for the Texas, North Carolina, and South Carolina seats. After 2006, do they really need to keep depressing their base?

In their last two years, the last three presidents got the following number of COA confirmations:

Reagan - 17 out of 26 nominations, 65.4%
Bush I - 20 out of 31 nominations, 64.5%
Clinton - 15 out of 34 nominations, 44.1%

http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RL31635.pdf

Carter got an incredible 44 out of 49 confirmed in his last two years, but he was filling a lot of newly created seats and had a senate controlled by his own party. Reagan, Bush I and Clinton, on the other hand, had hostile senates to deal with.

I suspect Bush will get 50-55% of his COA nominees confirmed. At present, I count 16 open COA seats and 3 future vacancies. With 19 positions to fill, I think Bush will get 9-11 COA nominees confirmed. With Randy Smith confirmed, that means 8-10 more confirmations to expect. I do not think Leahy will allow Bush to fill the California, Maryland, Michigan, Rhode Island and Virginia seats. The Dem senators of those states will help Leahy block new Bush appointments. Essentially that means that seven COA seats cannot be filled. In addition, there will be no filling the 12th seat on the D.C. Circuit.

I think the Dems will allow all of the four remaining COA nominees (Keisler, Livingston, Hardiman and Southwick) to be eventually confirmed. I also think they will Bush to fill the one North Carolina seat and the one South Carolina seat. They might, however, depending on the nominees, only allow Bush to fill one of the two Texas seats.

I think Specter and McConnell can put the screws on and at least get close. I'll be furious if at least 12 don't get confirmed (not at Specter and McConnell, but at the Dems, and at Frist for not getting more through in the last Congress).

I don't know if there are specific seats that can't be filled besides the 12th on the DC Circuit (1). the Maryland seat (2) strikes me as the next most unlikely. I think they'll let 1 VA seat through (probably, hopefully, Paul Clement), but probably not the 2nd (3). the 2nd PA seat may also be tough to fill (4). they'd let Bush fill the RI seat with Flanders, since Chafee and both Dems support him. They'll probably allow a squishy moderate on the CA seat, which means its probably better to focus elsewhere. I don't know what to think about the MI seats. they better let Bush fill both of his (and my) homestate seats in TX.

so I think 15 of the 19 current vacancies are probably fillable (maybe 13-14 depending on the MI seats), though not all will be (and I'd guess there will probably be a few more vacancies opening up (though most too late to do anything about), which will give a bit more flexibility in which seats are "allowable" to be filled, though the total actually filled won't increase), and some only with moderates (CA and RI chiefly, though there will have to be some others sprinkled around).

I'd be happy with 12 (maybe even 10 or 11), whereas I'd only grudgingly accept that number without one.

Stevens retires. Bush picks Boggs or Batchelder off the 6th, and gets Levin and Stabenow to support him/her and all of Bush's other picks by filling his/her seat with Levin's cousin. that puts us at 51 votes for cloture, plus Ben Nelson, Tim Johnson if he ever comes back, probably Landrieu, Baucus, Rockefeller, and Pryor (is one of the ND senators up too?) since they face the voters in 08, maybe Salazar and Lieberman and Byrd

...I think getting those 4 (5? 6?) in bold to put pressure on Leahy and the SJC to let enough judges through for their own survival will be key, along with McConnell, Specter, and Lott playing hardball.

There is a hitch with your plan. Boggs is from Kentucky and Batchelder is from Ohio. Levin's cousin, Helene White, is from Michigan. Neither Boggs or Batchelder could be replaced by a Michigan nominee, not even White.

so give White for one of the Michigan slots.which makes it independent of if there's a SCOTUS opening or not. (yes, I know its a moronic idea, but i'm just spitballi' here :P)

Answer: Senate Republicans grind the institution to a halt until an agreement is reached to allow all nominees a full up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. The Democrats want some accomplishments to tout for 2008. Make it come at a price!

The country was has a continuous leftward drift precisely because both the liberal and conservative movements have leaders that are far to the left of their respective memberships. The country will only turn to the right when rank-and-file conservatives demand conservative leaders be conservative.

Below is p. 2 of Fred Barnes' article on McConnell's trouncing Reid in the war on war resolutions. It bodes well for the future, I think, inc. judicial nominees and votes (as was written about earlier in the week). See paragraph 7 below on judicial nominees.

As is pointed out in the article, however, the Senate is built for defense, not offense. But I think McConnell can even turn that to advantage on behalf of judicial nominees.

Master of the Senate
Mitch McConnell runs rings around Harry Reid.
by Fred Barnes
02/19/2007, Volume 012, Issue 22

Page 2 of 2 < Back

"There are two things you can do with 41 or more dissenters," according to McConnell. You can block a bill or a resolution or you can "shape" it. In the Iraq debate, McConnell wanted to shape the outcome, not bar a vote on resolutions. He and Republican senators had come up with five separate resolutions. But the cleverly drafted Gregg resolution stood out. It said, "Congress should not take any action that will endanger United States military forces in the field, including the elimination or reduction of funds."

"That created a unique dilemma," says McConnell. Because Democrats were wary of voting against the Gregg resolution, it was likely to gain more votes than the antiwar, anti-surge resolution. Indeed, it was expected to get more than the 60 votes required for passage. Thus it might overshadow the Democratic resolution. Under the circumstances, Reid and Democrats decided no resolution and no debate would be preferable to allowing this one to pass.

Even so, Reid was not spared the embarrassment of being asked by Gregg, on the Senate floor, if he would vote for "my resolution." Reid dodged the issue. "I don't think I have to make that judgment now," he said. "Because the judgment, I say to my friend from New Hampshire, is not some diversionary matter. The issue before this body and the issue before the American people--that's why we're getting hundreds of phone calls in my office and other Senate offices around the country--the issue is, Does the Senate support the president's surge?"

McConnell, after

a dozen years of Republican rule in the Senate, has schooled Republicans on how to operate effectively as a minority. He recruited Martin Gold, an expert on minority rights in the Senate, to advise senators and their staff. The filibuster that stopped the Iraq debate, Gold says, "was a very early and very important test of whether the McConnell minority would stand up for itself or whether it would fracture." It showed Republicans would "not be railroaded."

They weren't railroaded when a bill boosting the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour reached the Senate floor in January. Democrats wanted a "clean" bill with only the wage hike. Republicans wanted tax cuts for small businesses that would be affected by the higher wage. Reid tried twice to halt debate and failed. So tax relief was added to the minimum wage bill. Republicans also used the filibuster to have a say on congressional ethics reform. McConnell mustered 46 votes to block the shutoff of the ethics debate.

McConnell wants a role in shaping the House-passed energy bill too, once it reaches the Senate. But he is bent on killing the legislation, already approved by the House, that would have the federal government negotiate drug prices in the Medicare prescription drug benefit program. "We're going to kill that proudly," he says. "It won't be a question of shaping."

The filibuster, even in the hands of as skilled a Senate leader as McConnell, has its limits. For instance, it won't help Republicans win confirmation of federal appeals courts nominees. "There's no easy way to extract nominees from committee," he says. The last three presidents got on average 17 appeals court nominees approved in their final two years, while facing a Senate ruled by the opposite party, McConnell says. To be fair, Democrats should allow at least that number to be confirmed now, he argues.

McConnell's first major venture in exploiting minority rights in the Senate came in 1994 when Democrats still had a majority. A campaign finance reform bill that would have imposed public financing on congressional races had passed both houses of Congress. McConnell consulted Senate secretary Elizabeth Letchworth to find out if there were any options left to block the legislation.

Letchworth told him three motions must be passed before conferees can be dispatched to iron out differences between the Senate and House bills. But of course nobody had ever filibustered those motions before, and she recommended against breaking new ground. That didn't stop McConnell. He succeeded in blocking the second motion. The bill died. Six weeks later, Republicans captured the Senate and House in the 1994 landslide.

Now, in the minority once more, McConnell is prepared to filibuster conferees again. He's wary of what might happen in a Senate-House conference on the minimum wage increase. The House passed a hike with no tax relief, and he doesn't want the Senate conferees to go along with that.

"We'll have to have a discussion of what might come out" of the conference, McConnell says. "That will be a lengthy and interesting discussion." In all likelihood, McConnell will get his way.

Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Ugh. Just ugh.

Why couldn't Mitch McConnell have been the majority leader instead of Frist?

McConnell is everything we have wanted in a Senate Leader. I am grateful that he is there right now when we really need him, but how useful would he have been in the majority? Especially with 55 seats?

What a missed opportunity...

Lott was pushed aside, and McConnell were passed over because they were conservatives, while Frist was a moderate, establishment Republican, more to the liking of GWB.

The country was has a continuous leftward drift precisely because both the liberal and conservative movements have leaders that are far to the left of their respective memberships. The country will only turn to the right when rank-and-file conservatives demand conservative leadership.