ConfirmThem

McConnell fears a filibuster which is why he doesn't want a cloture vote yet on Southwick. This is shades of Frist. Rather than face the "embarrassment" of another filibuster, McConnell would rather set Southwick's nomination aside until he can declare victory with 60 certain votes to end debate. The problem with this scenario, though, is that there probably are not 11 Democrats willing to vote for Southwick.

Prediction: if no vote (cloture or final) is held on Southwick before November 16th, his nomination will be returned to the White House and be blocked permanently in committee if renominated in 2008.

Well, this is what most of us were expecting all alon, so no surprise here. Nice, but not enough. Hopefully, we and the GOP Senators won't totally swallow the bait and forget about Southwick for another month.

I don't think the Dem-Libs have anything against Haynes per se, just as they probably don't have anything against Tinder. But that won't prevent them from further stalling these nominations.

Remember this. Stalling Haynes backs up and delays all the CCA nominees behind her, and time is growing short. That's the Dems' true aim and motivation here. Same thing with Tinder now. They are playing this chess game while thinking several moves ahead. The not-so-bright or indifferent GOP Senators are probably just reacting and floundering in the moment, as usual. Easy pickings.

The Hill has an article tomorrow about judicial nominations. See here. Senator Kyl is correct: “We’ve got names now, and it’s now incumbent on Senator Leahy to get them hearings, to get them markups and get them to the floor."

Eleven circuit court nominees are now pending.

There haven't been any circuit court confirmations since May.

Instead of blaming the White House for not sending over more nominees, how about working on the ones that have already been sent? Especially deserving of action is Judge Southwick, who has already cleared committee.

Republicans are saying that the Dems are not processing Bush COA nominees fast enough.

Dems are saying that they can't process COA nominees who haven't been nominated.

IMHO, rather than telling the truth, both sides are muddying the confirmation waters with spin and political doublespeak. The Republicans are correct that the Dems are being unduly slow in confirming COA judges, but they refuse to admit that most of Bush's nominees have been chosen more for their ability to antagonize the Dems than for their ability to be confirmed. Getchell is a prime example of this. The Dems on the other hand are disingeneously claiming that they don't have enough COA nominees to confirm at that rate the Republicans want because the White House has been slow in nominating people. This is not true. After Elrod, there are ten more COA nominees that could be processed if the Dems so desired. That is plenty to keep the senate judiciary committee busy for awhile. The Dems, however, want to avoid saying that they have no intention of processing eight of those ten nominees (Keisler, Southwick, Kethledge, Murphy, Conrad, Stone, Getchell and Matthews).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/03/AR200710...

"Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) signaled yesterday that he will move ahead with confirmation hearings for a new attorney general later this month without reaching a deal on documents that he hoped to obtain from the White House."

"The remarks indicated an end to Leahy's attempt to use the Mukasey nomination to pry loose sensitive information from the White House about the prosecutor firings, the government's warrantless surveillance program and other issues. Leahy's office has been in intensive negotiations with White House counsel Fred F. Fielding since President Bush named Mukasey as the nominee three weeks ago, but no agreement has been reached.

Leahy has yet to announce a date for Mukasey's confirmation hearing, though Senate aides have said it is likely to be held in the third or fourth week of this month. In his letter, Leahy invited Mukasey to a one-on-one meeting Oct. 16, suggesting that a public hearing would be held soon afterward."

I am not sure how Mukasey's hearing and confirmation might impact the confirmations of Tinder and Haynes.

You say, "most of Bush's nominees have been chosen more for their ability to antagonize the Dems than for their ability to be confirmed. Getchell is a prime example of this."

This sounds like a MoveOn.org talking point. Can you identify anything about Getchell that indicates he's not exceptionally well-qualified for the slot? Has it occurred to you that perhaps Bush is simply trying to nominate people who are most qualified, which is Bush's sworn constitutional duty? Getchell, for example, was previously recommended by John Warner, so he obviously is not some unqualified moron. The more Bush caters to the whims of liberal Democrats in making judicial nominations, the more they will see that their demands and smears and obstruction are paying off. There are no easy answers here for the GOP, and certainly allowing Democrats to make judicial nominations is not the best answer.

In Getchell's case, there were five people with seemingly better credentials than Getchell who had Warner's and Webb's explicit approval. Are trying to tell me that none of those five were sufficiently conservative to be effective as Fourth Circuit judges? That seems a far-fetched proposition to me. Two of those people are sitting justices of the Virginia Supreme Court approved to their seats by Republican legislatures. Why did Bush overlook them and choose someone else? Their nominations would appear to have been slam-dunks. Instead, Bush chose someone that Warner has explicitly said that he rejected after Allen's defeat in 2006 when the Dems retook the Senate. It doesn't make any difference if Warner once supported Getchell. The main point is that now he doesn't. Was Bush listening to the Republican senator in this case, or was he setting up a political battle in order to further a campaign issue in 2009? You tell me.

The embarrassment of a filibuster attempt will be on the Dems. Since they’re in the majority, they can easily be characterized as “filibustering themselves.” Instead of shying away from a filibuster, GOP senators should look forward to publicly asking their Democratic counterparts why they fear and are trying to block the votes of members of their own party.

There appears to be two totally different perspectives at work here on the eligibility of certain candidates to be COA nominees. The White House seemingly is looking only at ideology and credentials and not confirmability. On the other hand, the Dems are only interested in confirmability. Can the ideology and credentials of the nominee in question satisfy enough Dem senators in order to get him or her confirmed?

As I have said before, if only ideology and credentials are examined, then Bush and the Republicans must be prepared for few if any COA confirmations. They need to stop whining about the slow pace of confirmations if they themselves know when they nominate a candidate that his views or background are not acceptable to the average Dem senator. If Bush did not consult Levin, Stabenow, Lautenberg, Menendez or Webb about the nominations that those senators control, then he needs to accept responsibility for their obstruction.

If Bush wants confirmations, then he must work with the idea in mind that he does not control the confirmation process. Constitutionally, he as president has the right to nominate anyone he wants. However, the party in control of the Senate has the constitutional right to say no to those same people by a variety of methods since the Senate is allowed to make up its own rules. This is what happened to Clinton's nominees.

I worry about hypocrisy in this situation. The argument that what was done to Clinton's nominees is justifiable, but what is happening now to Bush's nominees is not, is not logical. In both cases, the nominees of a president of one party were blocked by the opposing party that controlled the Senate. That is all perfectly constitutional.

If Bush, like Clinton before him, truly wanted more confirmations in a Senate controlled by his opponents, he would nominate more candidates who were less divisive. The nominations of Livingston, Elrod and Haynes were brilliant. All three of these women are conservatives who will not abuse the Constitution. However, the nominations of Kethledge, Murphy, Stone and Getchell were not. Yes, these men have the ideology and credentials, but, no, they do not have confirmability due to the blue-slip policy, a policy Leahy unfortunately has the right to invoke as the majority chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. As Lindsay Graham pointed out, elections have consequences. Conservatives are now paying the price for the 2006 election.

McConnell probably fears that Clinton, Obama, Biden and Dodd will use a Southwick filibuster to score political points with their liberal constituents. The people of PFAW and MoveOn.org will not be embarrassed by a filibuster. Rather the contrary will happen. They will feel energized and excited. Maybe McConnell doesn't want those liberal special-interest groups to have a campaign issue.

Let's be clear on this - a filibuster on Southwick works for us on a number of levels. First, the donks will have gone back on their word that if a nominee gets a Dem vote in the SJC, there would be no filibuster. Furthermore, the case against Southwick is very weak and vindictive, let's just draw that out into the open. Take the same approach we did in 2004 - bring up Southwick, let them filibuster if they choose to, and then turn it into a campaign issue. I couldn't care less about MoveOn, let's mobilize our own troops, who are very discouraged right now. Fight back, and fight hard.

But also, fight smartly. I do agree that we could have picked 2 good conservatives from the Warner/Webb list instead of possibly getting no one confirmed. There are two objectives here, and need to address each one. One is to confirm judges. The second is to turn this into an issue that galvanizes the base. Let's use a little common sense, and we can do both.

Regarding the nominations of Matthews and Getchell to two 4th Circuit seats, I think that the Bush Administration has actally made a rational calculation that the Democrats will not confirm any 4th Circuit nominee shot of a female or non-white moderate-liberal. The idea that after 5 years of calculated 100% obstruction of white 4th Cir. nominees, that the Dems. would suddenly play nice and confirm a white moderate conservative is nothing short of a pipe-dream. Why would they give up now when they have all but won the game? Whatever "approved" list person is nominated, Dems will obstruct him or her unless they are liberal, although for appearances' sake Webb himself may give pro forma support to the Virginia nominee.

As I wrote in post #2 above, Democrats have been playing a chess game and planning three moves ahead. In the case of the 4th Circuit, Dems have been thinking about six moves ahead. I am convinced, and have at least suspected for 5 years, that Dem/Libs have been implementing a calculated scheme to take over the 4th Circuit. I thought this threat had been averted by the GOP victory in 2004 and relaxed, as did the GOP. Fatal mistake. By the spring of '06 the situation was truly serious, but the reactive and indifferent Republicans continued to fall for the Democrats' various gambits. Each and every post-Duncan nominee was obstructed for seemingly different reasons (Boyle, Haynes, Allen, Maryland). Nobody was confirmed and the pattern became more and more obvious, but Republicans continued to do nothing effective. Schumer must have been chortling in the cloakrooms. When Luttig retired and no one was nominated, the situation became critical. Last November the game was lost. Perpetual Check (at least until 2009) If Hillary wins: Checkmate.

To believe at this late date that the sitation can be redeemed and the game won merely by picking nominees from the right list to satisfy Webb or whomever is to completely misconstrue what has been happening for the last 5 years regarding the 4th Circuit. The Dem/Libs have brilliantly maneuvered the GOP deep into an arid desert, and seeing mirages cannot reedeem the situation. Only a Romney or Thompson victory in '08 can possibly save the 4th Circuit.

Matt you asked who was going to run against Mary L. Rove worked hard on getting Mark Kennedy into that race and it probably will succeed. He is the current state treasurer and former AG.

Andrew you comments are maddening. I respect your point of view but it is flat out WRONG!!! That kind of logic has led to the failures of Boyle, Haynes, etc. Im not saying put Ruth Gingburg clones on the CCA but you have to negotiate a little bit. Come on, are you telling me that Lemon would not be just as good. It is not always Bush's way or the highway. That is what has gotten him into so much trouble. Using your logic you should have been the biggest Miers supporter because the president is the only one who has a say. Im sure all of you are glad the president didnt always get his way like andrew advocates or else we would have AGAG and Miers instead of Roberts and Alito.

I've been mostly out of the loop here (making me loopy? or unloopy?) the past few days, so I apologize if further information's been given. But can anyone tell me whether and/or when the hearings for the AG nominee will begin?

And, I've been thinking. If there is a SCOTUS opening in the next 8 months or so, maybe the new AG wouldn't be so bad. He could perhaps provide 14 or so years of service, or less if he wants to retire under a GOP prez.

Mukasey will probably get his hearing sometime during the last two weeks of October.

The urge to accommodate obstructionists is what got us a long parade of GOP-appointed Supreme Court justices who have often behaved as lawmakers instead of judges. GOP presidents sought to accommodate a Senate majority.

Now some people urge accommodation not just of a Senate majority, but of a Senate minority. If that becomes standard procedure, then interpretation of our most fundamental laws will be at the mercy of the likes of MoveOn. Better to leave seats vacant and make it a campaign issue. Better yet, have cloture votes out in the open, and if Dems filibuster then the GOP should slow down Senate work on matters important to the filibusterers. It's imperative that minority-control of the judicial confirmation process not become the norm.

Jtp7 asked about Donald W. Lemons. I certainly do not believe that the White House passed over his name merely because Senator Webb suggested it. I believe there must have been other reasons. And maybe Lemons will be nominated by Bush in the future. A more important question is, why wasn't Webb willing to okay Getchell?

Bush withdrew the nominations of Haynes and Boyle, but apparently that's not enough. He must also nominate precisely who the Democrats say he should nominate.

Is there one single valid objection to Getchell? Just one?

Haynes was a key player in the military's most controversial policies on detentions and interrogations in the war on terrorism. Boyle had some minor transgressions regarding conflicts of interest. What is there against Getchell? Nothing, as far as I know.

Maybe the White House did not agree with the 4-3 decision by Lemons in Virginia v. Black, striking down Virginia's law against cross-burning. See here. The US Supreme Court overturned Lemons, 6-3.

I am not taking a position here on Virginia v. Black, but it is one of various reasons why Getchell may have been nominated instead of Lemons.

I am perfectly willing to argue against a nominee who is chosen to appease obstructionists. Getchell was not nominated for that reason.

Any guesse(s) re how long the hearings will be (a few days?)? How long from vote to floor. Vote on floor? Will he be confirmed before the Senate recesses for the rest of the year?

Agreed that Getchell is exceptionally well-qualified (as are at least two, if not four, of the names on Webb's list). Therefore, why in the name of all that is holy did Bush NOT nominate him 15 months ago? He'd've sailed through. Specter wouldn't have said boo to Warner and that would've been that.

What drives BoBo & myself crazy is that looking at it in a vacuum it appears the WH deliberately ignored Getchell the first time because he WAS on a list, and then deliberately picked him now because he ISN'T on a list.

Plus, I see nothing that separates Getchell substantively from Lemons & Matthews(?). I disagree 100% that Webb would only offer only "pro-forma" support to nominees from HIS list. Hell, it's his list plus he knows he snuck thru last time & wants to appear all effective & statesmanlike. He's gonna run in 2012 on "getting things done for VA". Fill the damn seats.

If Stevens croaks tonight, do we really leave the seat open til '09 because the WH says "JRB" & Reid says "No, Pryor", or vice-versa? That's where this argument winds up eventually.

And agreed 100% McConnell should force a real filibuster & cancel the damn recess. He'll do nothing of the kind, of course. Southwick is done. When he's renominated, assuming he even gets another hearing, DiFi will say that "new evidence has emerged causing me serious concerns" and will change her vote. Nighty-night.

Andrew, you center your argument around Lemons but there were four other choices if Lemons was unsuitable due to one opinion he may have written. I can't imagine that all five Warner/Webb nominees had problems so grievous that none deserved nomination. In addition, Warner has explicitly stated that Getchell is too conservative for the present Dem-controlled Senate. He has said that is why he withdrew his support for Getchell when the Dems won in November 2006. He also has said that the White House knew about his change of heart. I don't know how much more explicit a reason you need to explain why Warner and Webb do not support Getchell.

From the WaPo article I linked to yesterday, I think the exact timing of his hearing will depend on negotiation with Fred Fielding. The Dems want to ask some pretty explicit questions that the White House may balk at. According to certain sources, Bush has about 210 days after Gonzales' departure in order to keep the Justice Department running with an Acting AG. I would think the Dems would want to get Mukasey confirmed before November 16th to make sure that Keisler is out of their hair before January 2008.

I don't have time to go through the Webb-Warner list and speculate about the weaknesses of each listed person. Jtp7 asked above about Lemons, so I researched his involvement in Virginia v. Black, but I don't have time to research all of the four others. You might want to also consider the possibility that Lemons was supported by Webb as a "poison pill", in view of Virginia v. Black.

As for why Bush did not ask Haynes to step aside earlier, and nominate Getchell instead, you can go look at the ConfirmThem archives and you will not find me raising hell about Haynes. I raised hell about confirming Boyle, not Haynes. In any event, I'm not sure it's helpful to descend into recriminations here about what might have been.

And I have no idea why Warner thinks Getchell is too "conservative." Anyway, I would think that "conserving" the Constitution is something that Warner supports.

This entire judicial nominations issue is nothing more than a PR item for both sides. Unfortunately, the Republican are very stupid and play what they think is a gentleman's game. They believe that they are right and that the people will come around to that conclusion. It does not work that way. The Democrats are out there lying everyday and the Republicans do no call them on it. If it's a choice of listening to liars lie or nobody, the people will always choose liars lying. Think about it: there is no opposing point of view. So it has to be right, right? If the majority Democrats filibuster, it makes the Republicans look bad, not the Democrats. The Democrats are going to be out there at the microphone and the Republicans won't say anything. The Democrats play to win and the Republicans do not. This whole thing sickens me. All they need is ONE person to go to every camera in the Capitol and speak about this. Only once had there been a filibuster, and that was bipartisan. And they do nothing. In this instance, one person CAN make a difference.

Also confirmed by voice vote are Mauskopf, Jones and Aycock.

http://aclj.org/TrailNotebook/Read.aspx?id=512

http://aclj.org/TrialNotebook/Read.aspx?id=512

http://thegate.nationaljournal.com/2007/10/cia_interrogations_to_take_ce...

"[The Senate Judiciary Committee] yesterday announced that confirmation hearings for attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey would begin as early as two weeks from now. Chairman Patrick Leahy appeared to be signaling that he would not hold up Mukasey's hearings despite an ongoing confrontation with the White House over the NSA surveillance program and U.S. attorney firings scandal. While the revelations about DOJ possibly signing off on torture will probably not affect the hearing timeline, they will almost certainly have a huge impact on Mukasey's confirmation.

A congressional source with close knowledge of the committee said that "a lot of people are really, really angry" about the secret opinions."

Good. If the Dem/Libs stall Mukasey after the hearings or even defeat him outright, so much the better. They will look like petulant idiots, and who knows how soft Mukasey might turn out as AG. And if there's some kind of National emergency, the consequences for the Left will be horrendous.

The longer Keisler serves as Acting AG the better. If Mukasey goes down, Bush should recess-appoint Keisler as AG. Stick it right in the Dems' ugly rotten faces.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/10223746.html

There was no need to ask Haynes to step aside at all, due to 2 VA vacancies.

That's what makes this so inexlicable.

Yes, I thought there was a place for Getchell last year. Insanity, just beyond belief. And wasn't Haynes nominated for a SC seat, not one of the VA's? It was Graham & McCain who killed him, not the Dems.

Most of the blame for this apocalypse falls on Frist (with Bush, McCain & Graham getting their share too), but not this.

Andrew, I have always agreed that Frist should've used Boyle to prove the Dems were violating the GO14's "extraordinary circumstances" clause and brought back the nuke, but he supposedly was sacrificed in secret for Kavanaugh so that was that.

Boyle's treatment was disgraceful & Haynes' only slightly less so, but it was very clear by 2/06 that Frist was not going to do a thing for either, and with the pipeline loaded with Getchell caliber candidates who WERE confirmable, it's just...just almost too hard to keep thinking about.

I mean, think of how Bill Belichik or Bill Gates would've handled this. Every seat would be full and the Dems would be completely at war with each other over it. How many Super Bowls would the Pats have won had Belichik switched back to Bledsoe in 2001 for reasons of tradition, courtesy or conventional wisdom (sorry for an esoteric analogy for the non-football fans here :) )?

The least Bush could've done was nominate Henry Saad for something else (AG? Why not?), or quietly seen that he got a golden parachute in the private sector. He's the only person who did the right thing in this whole mess.

Are the REPUBLICANS being fair to him, specifically Bush & the WH? He certainly won't be confirmed or even get a hearing, and the only time his name will be mentioned in public he'll be being lied about (remember Dahlia's column).

Unless he's fully aware & willing to become a campaign issue (and he's very smart so he likely figured it out regardless of what the WH told him), it's not fair to just leave these guys twisting and never lift a finger for them, beyond the occasional generalized platitude.

Regardless of all the other issues, Bush did nothing for Estrada, Saad, Boyle, Meyers, Haynes or even JRB, Owen, Pryor & Kavanaugh after nominating them, that I can recall. Cheney or Rove don't know ONE pitbull to send over to the Senate (and the press room) every day to scream about judges? Or send Faircloth, John Danforth or Jake Garn if you want a lighter touch. Crikey. Must not be very important. Hillary'll have 3-4 fulltime staffers and several retired Dem senators doing nothing but judges.

One final thing to note--A lot of libs weren't happy that Clinton "let" Hatch pick RBG & Breyer. While I realize that hardly scratches the surface surrounding those nominations (and esp. the lessons that need to be learned if Hillary wins in '08), I think the libs are pretty happy with how it all turned out.

Getchell is being nominated for the same Virginia seat that Haynes was nominated for, i.e. the Widener seat (see here and here).

To the extent that the White House may have been relying upon the Virginia State Bar, that organization has been slow with its evaluations, and only rated Getchell as highly qualified in April of this year (see here).

There are presently (at most) only two "Virginia" vacancies on the Fourth Circuit: the Luttig seat and the Widener seat. No one has been nominated yet for the Luttig seat, and don't expect a nomination soon, because it's highly disputed whether Virginia should have so many seats on the Fourth Circuit.

there is NOTHING controversial about any of these nominees (with the exception of Getchell, but even he is not controverisal in his own right. yes, Bush would have been better served, and better served us, by sticking with the Warner/Webb list, but that is something very different than saying Getchell himself is controversial). we ought not - MUST not - buy so distorted a frame simply because the Dems decide to whine and lie about EVERYTHING.

Andrew, re: #33, as I've said before, there is a state on the 4th circuit that ought to give up a seat (to NC, not to oblivion), but the argument is much better for that state being SC than for VA.