ConfirmThem

I don't mean to nitpick, as it appears McConnell is doing a pretty decent job pressuring the Dems to move forward on judges, but I'd like to see some progress for Keisler and Livingston. They are the longest pending circuit nominees at this point, and should be moved along soon. No reason for concern at this point, I hope....

I wouldn't say McConnell is doing a decent job at much of anything, including judges.

And while I'd love to see quicker action on ANY nominees, the 4th and 6th Circuits are more important than DC and the 2nd (if Bush would go ahead and nominate/renominate people for the 4th and 6th already).

I just hope there's no hidden surprise for Hardiman, the way there was for Pickering back in 2002. No one saw his negative vote coming then.

Also regarding the SJC, it would be awfully nice if it scheduled some hearings on the nominees...

At this point, only Livingston and Southwick need hearings. I am somewhat surprised that Livingston has had to wait so long for her hearing. Hillary and Chuckie most certainly had to have given her their approval last summer, otherwise she never would've been nominated. But since the Democrat victory in November, maybe they are having second thoughts. Maybe they think they can get someone less conservative than Livingston if they can wait it out the right amount of time.

This being said, though, I think Keisler, Livingston and Southwick will all eventually be confirmed. It is possible that one of the reasons that the White House is waiting on announcing new COA nominees is to force action on the ones already nominated (btw, I think they tried this same strategy last year rather unsuccessfully).

It's a poor strategy to delay nominating/renominating others in order to induce action on the few pending nominations. Bush should nominate someone for every vacancy and start the clock running now.

Come election time, let the Dems explain why they refused to act on a nomination that was pending for ALMOST TWO YEARS (not one that was pending for only 6 or 8 or 10 months because Bush "strategically" delayed sending it over to the Senate).

I agree. Let's not hold nominees. But, let's not start off with a bunch of compromise candidates, either, so that the Dems can approve them and then claim to have cooperated while ignoring more solid candidates. I know that we probably can't push things too far with the types of nominees, but let's not set things up so that the "mainstream" judicial conservates can't even get through.

Any word on this morning's SJC meeting? Did the nominees make it through, or were they held over?

Bobo, after the sordid events of the past 4 years, how could anyone here possibly be surprised by Democrat obstruction and delay. The capacity for naivete among many on this site is remarkable and seemingly bottomless.

I think it's clear that Leahy, Schumer and Co. don't care a whit about Hardiman and Livingston per se; they are only using these nominees as pawns to further slow down and delay the entire appellate confirmation process. It is now March 1st, the Senate has been in session for two months, and how many Circuit nominee hearings have there been: ZERO (and only one hearing even for Distrct Court nominees). Of course the pathetic feckless GOP 109th Senate handed the Dems. the tools for this delay by foolishly leaving so many easily confirmable nominees hanging last fall. Typical. Senate Dems, will be able to waste 4-6 months this year confirming (hopefully) nominees that should already be on the federal bench, before they even get to new nominees.

As I wrote in post #27 on the weekend appellate nominee thread, after the upcoming drawn-out trench battle over Keisler finally ends (there will doubtless be another hearing and delays in Committee before it even gets to the floor--and I'm by no means optimistic about the final result), the administration must concentrate like a laser beam on the 4th Circuit.

2 nominations to the 4th Cir. (S.C. and N.C) should be sent to the Senate within a week, so that the interminable Committee and ABA investigation process can begin. No other Circuit nominations should be made at this time, Dems. would move the nomination of a 9th (California), 1st (Rhode Island) or 3rd (N.J.) squish to the front of the line, leaving the 4th Cir. nominees to lanquish without a hearing.

Then in a month or two, two more nominations should be sent: 4th Circuit-Virginia (one of Warner's proteges could be nominated if that's what it takes) and 5th (Tex.). Then in another 2 months (around the end of June), 2 more nominations: 3rd (Pa.) and 5th (other Tex.) or, if a deal can still be made with Levin-Stabenow, the 2 6th Cir. nominees. Then 2 more in September.

Proper sequencing of the appellate nominations is essential. If too many are sent at once, it will give the Dems. the option to pick and choose among them, and the 4th Circuit will nominees will surely go to the back of the line.

It doesn't surprise me that Hardiman got held over. In all honesty, I was somewhat shocked when Leahy put him on the SJC agenda to begin with. After all the whining by the Dems last year about how Hardiman had made political donations after his COA nomination, I thought the liberal Dem activist groups would actively try to delay the nomination. When Hardiman's name came up so quickly again in the 110th Congress, I took it as a goodwill gesture by Leahy to his friend Specter. I think the one week delay in the nomination now is a goodwill gesture by Leahy to Nan Aron and Ralph Neas. Ultimately, however, I don't think the delay will stop Hardiman from becoming the second COA judge confirmed by this congress.

when's the next committee meeting, July? I hate Leahy. and Schumer. And Kennedy. And Feingold. And Durbin.

Hardiman held over today. How totally unsurprising. The Dems. have drained at least another week off the calendar, which is obviously the whole idea. Still no hearing for Livingston scheduled, which would be the First C.A. hearing this year. Presumably, the Leahy-Schumer-Kennedy-Durbin Committee will only deal with one C.A. nominee at a time, so Livingston can't have a hearing until Hardiman is reported to the Floor, whenever that may be. Then it will be at least another month until Keisler or Southwick even gets a hearing (and I assure you that the Dems. will piously decide that Keisler must have another hearing because the one last year was just so inadequate).

With the Easter Recess, this takes us to at least the end of April. The Democrat Delay Strategy is proceeding along nicely, and sloooowwwwwwly. 2008 approaches inexorably.

By the way, does anyone here have a response to the provacative, original, and cogent points I made about nomination sequencing strategy in my post #7? Just wondering if people around here are truly serious about what is happening.

maybe the strategy hasn't worked brilliantly before, but what other repsonse is there to the Dems tactics, really? I think releasing a few more nominees into the pipeline than you outline is probably good though (the 7 it appears will come in the next few weeks is probably about right. I might go for more like 5 for the next release (2 4th, 1 3rd, 1 5th, 1 wildcard) but 7's ok, just wish there were more than 1 of those for the 4th. then after the 4 pending nominations are through, and work begun on the new batch, maybe after the 1st of those is confirmed, release a few more. don't flood the field until Dec or Jan at earliest)

I just hope we can get Hardiman, Livingston, Southwick, Keisler, and at least one other (though that's probably unlikely for anyone not already nominated; the NC seat would be good) confirmed by the end of June.

I am not a fan of waiting too long for particular nominees to get confirmed before new nominees are announced. It could lead to a detrimental linkage of certain nominees. This happened with The Fatal Four in the 109th Congress. In a large part, waiting for them to be confirmed considerably slowed down the confirmation process for the people nominated after them. We cannot afford slow-downs this early in the game. Leahy will require ABA ratings of all the new nominees before he will give any of them hearings. Any projected timeling needs to consider a three month delay for the ABA rating to be evaluated. If Hardiman, Keisler, Livingston and Southwick get confirmed at a pace of once a month, we will need new nominees to be ready for a hearing by July. That means the new batch of nominees needs to be nominated by the beginning of April.

I worry about trying to initially force Webb's hand with the two Virginia seats. To nominate 4th Circuit people he opposes in April and then waiting two months before new nominations will just waste two months of precious time because you can bet the Webb will not budge. Basically, all nominees whom we want to get confirmed must be done this year. I doubt Leahy will allow any in 2008. We can't afford to waste two months at this critical juncture. I also think pushing the two Michigan seats on the 6th Circuit will be useless. Rather, I think we need to concentrate on seats to which we can realistically get reliable conservatives confirmed. That means concentrating on filling the one North Carolina, one South Carolina and the two Texas seats during the last six months of the year. All of those seats are controlled by two Republican senators.

Thanks for replying. However, I don't think that you you have fully understood the plan I outlined. It does not "wait for them to be confirmed" before presenting new nominees. On the contrary, the pipeline would always be adequately filled, but not overloaded.

I am not as optimistic as you about the rate of confirmations, and don't believe that the current batch of 4 (Hardiman, Livingston, Keisler and Southwick) will be finished until the end of June. At the optimal Leahy rate of one per month, That would be one for March, April, May and June. But even assuming that they are completed by the end of May, the 2 4th Circuit nominees from N.C. and S.C. (if named in the next two weeks) would be ready for hearings by the end of May at the latest. That would suffice for June and July.

Meanwhile, 2 more (5th-Tex. and 4th-Vir. or 3rd-Pa.) would be nominated by the end of April, and ready for September and October. 2 more in June and 2 more in September would keep the pipeline more than filled.

The key is to keep the pipeline adequately filled with the highest priority nominees, but not to overload it with less important ones (9th-Ca., 1st-R.I., 3rd-N.J. and prospectve 10th). Doing so will enable the Dems. to cherry pick, holding hearings for moderate squishes from California and Rhode Island, while keeping crucial nominees from the 4th Cir. and 5th Cir. indefinitely in cold storage limbo. Does anyone here still doubt that the Democrats are smart enough to do this?

BoBo, I agree that the 6th Circuit nomination should not be pushed unless (another) firm deal is in place, and that idiot Brownback can be prevented from sabotaging it again. Also, the first batch of 4th Circuit nominees should be from S.C. and N.C., which are no business of Webb's.

The first line of the last paragraph of my #13 above should read "nominations", not nomination (since there are two vacancies on the 6th Circuit).

And you start with your emergency vacancies (I've said this before here) and then you go and beat up your Dems for not filling emergency vacancies.

The other thing is that if you send 20 or 30 nominations down the pipe, the Dems can't block them all without looking really bad.

We might miss out on one or two we want, but if the backlog is at the SJC then you just have someone stand in the Senate well and beat on Leahy for his delay.

when they can't even be bothered to take 30 seconds in a business meeting for 19 yeas or nays???? I guess some urgent, non-binding business required their attention?