ConfirmThem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Clinton%27s_judicial_appointments...

As I explain in the last thread, I think the new Wikipedia article on obstructed Clinton judicial nominees may be an attempt by some Dems to justify their present obstruction of Keisler, Robert Conrad and Steve Matthews. The article's timing and its opening statement seem to point to the Dem viewpoint that their nominees were more harshly treated in the 106th Congress by the Republicans than Bush nominees are presently being treated by Dems in the 110th Congress:

"During President Bill Clinton's second term of office, he nominated seventeen people for Federal judgeships but they were blocked by the Republican-controlled United States Senate in a political maneuver to keep seats open for a Republican president to fill."

Here's an interesting tidbit from the Wikipedia article above about the failed Clinton nomination of Christine Arguello to the 10th Circuit - specifically, the last couple paragraphs:

"On July 27, 2000, President Clinton nominated Arguello to the seat on the Tenth Circuit that opened up when John Carbone Porfilio took senior status.[2] (Arguello previously had been considered by Clinton for a nomination to a district-court seat.) Clinton previously had nominated James Lyons to the seat in September 1999, but withdrew Lyons' nomination in June 2000. With her appeals-court nomination coming so late in Clinton's presidency (falling inside the Thurmond Rule) and with the U.S. Senate then controlled by Republicans, Arguello's nomination languished, never receiving a hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee or a full Senate vote.

Ultimately, President George W. Bush nominated Timothy Tymkovich to the Tenth Circuit seat in 2003. He won Senate confirmation later in 2003.

After Arguello's nomination lapsed, she joined the firm of Davis, Graham & Stubbs in Denver. In April 2006, she took a leave of absence from Davis Graham to join the University of Colorado as its Managing Senior Associate University Counsel.[3]

On January 30, 2008, U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard of Colorado submitted Arguello's name to the White House as part of a list of seven names for the president to consider nominating to three vacant U.S. District Court judgeships. On April 3, 2008, U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado (Arguello's old boss), included Arguello's name in a list of three names that Salazar was recommending that the president nominate.[4] Arguello's name is expected to be one of the three that the two senators forward to the White House.[5]

On May 17, 2008, a television station in Denver reported that the White House had chosen Arguello as one of three nominees to fill vacancies on the U.S. District Court for Colorado.[6]"

Why are Allard and Bush nominating a failed Clinton nominee? Is it because Salazar has railroaded them and taken over the nominating procedure in CO?

Nice work on the Wikipedia stuff. As for Arguello, maybe there's a deal in place that confirms Allison Eid to the 10th Circuit in return! :)

/snark

We really need to get someone adding stuff to Wiki about how Hatch got Breyer confirmed to the DCC in late '80 by getting Thurmond to violate his own "rule"; how the so-called "rule" is total nonsense; how Roberts & Mahoney were blocked in '92; how Medgar Evers' brother supported Pickering; etc.

STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA, J., joined.

Well, maybe one sorta kinda almost sixteenthways did; Sam ruled for petitioners in the two latest discrimination cases:

http://tinyurl.com/6jvlcb
http://tinyurl.com/68g8xu

STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA, J., joined.

http://www.abanet.org/scfedjud/ratings/ratings110.pdf

White was given a WQ(sm)/Q(min) rating. That is much higher than the rating she got under Clinton: Q(sm)/NQ(min). I guess fifteen years on the Michigan Court of Appeals has helped her.

Murphy, however, has not received his new rating. I can't imagine that it would be too much different than his original one. I bet his new rating appears within the week.

With White's committee questionnaire turned in now and her ABA rating received, expect her, Kethledge and Murphy to be confirmed within the first two weeks of June. I do not think that the Dems will hold over these three nominations for a week as is their usual habit. As I have mentioned before, I anticipate that Kethledge and White will be confirmed by unanimous consent or voice vote in order to prevent individual Dem senators from going on record to confirm Kethledge and individual Republicans as going on record to confirm White.

Watch the Dems use the confirmations of Kethledge, White and Glen Conrad to keep the Republicans from closing down the Senate in June and bringing the issue of Keisler, Robert Conrad and Steve Matthews up until late July.

White was nominated on 4/15 and her rating came out on 5/28. Based on this, Glen Conrad should get his rating around Monday, 6/23. He was nominated on 5/8.

I expect G. Conrad to get a committee hearing sometime during the last two weeks of June. Since the Senate will adjourn for the July 4th break on Friday, June 27, I doubt that Glen Conrad can be confirmed in June. Probably his confirmation will be delayed until the beginning of July. The Senate will reconvene on Tuesday, July 8, and then adjourn again on Friday, August 8.

Bobo. There is a very slight correction to your post. Helene White received the following ABA rating today: WQ(m)/Q(min). There was not a substantial majority (sm) for the WQ rating, just a mere majority.

It is amazing that she received not only a new rating with breakneck speed, but she also received an upgrade to boot. All nominees should receive the same careful and uniform treatment by the ABA and the SJC as Helene White.

I still smell Discharge Petitions in the air in the Beltway.

I sure hope the ABA issues a rating for Glen Conrad faster than it did for Helene White. (Unless, of course, the Dems ask the ABA to drag its feet.)

Judge White last received a ABA rating in 1999, 9 years ago.

http://www.abanet.org/scfedjud/ratings/ratings106.pdf

Judge Conrad last received an ABA rating in 2003, only 5 years ago.

http://www.abanet.org/scfedjud/ratings/ratings108.pdf

That's four less years of work product to review.

Courtesy of How Appealing,

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202421747827

"Isaac Lidsky has been an associate at Jones Day's Washington, D.C. office for only three months, so he was unsure where to find the Erwin Griswold conference room, where our interview would take place. He asked for my elbow to guide him.

I had never been to the conference room either. But I can see. Isaac Lidsky is blind. As I followed signs, and Jones Day workers showed me the way with Lidsky at my side, the magnitude of what lies ahead for Lidsky became real."

"First came Harvard College, then Harvard Law School, Harvard Law Review, an appellate clerkship and then the Justice Department's Civil Division. The 29-year-old applied for a high court clerkship four times before finally getting a call in late December from retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor -- just as he was about to take a job with Jones Day, a venerable firm chock full of former clerks."

"'Isaac will excel in any job he does,' says former Attorney General Peter Keisler, who hired Lidsky in the Civil Division. 'Appellate work is what he enjoys doing, and he does it extremely well.' Keisler, himself a former clerk, is now a partner at Sidley Austin."