ConfirmThem

The White House has no excuses on this one. It is unbelievable that they didn't vet any possible nominees to replace Boyle and Haynes. It is even more unbelievable that they didn't quickly name a successor to Luttig before the November election. These missteps reflect very poorly on the efficiency of Miers who was in control of making judicial nominations at the time. That said, why isn't Feilding doing more now? Is the White House so tied up trying to fight off congressional investigations that they don't have any time for judges?

Even if they are busy...just name someone. Didn't we finally get a list of acceptable candidates from Webb and Warner over a month ago? It's freakin' August already and the Dems are slow-walking everyone in sight.

It's probably already too late.

load up the CCA slots and take what the Dems will give you. The Dems WANT to look fair so if that means 2nd and 3rd choices now then take them and curse Bill Frist when you sit back and drink your whiskey late at night.

Oz

www.first-cut-politics.blospot.com

Since the Alito confirmation, it's as though Bush decided the courts didn't matter any more. Seriously, it's the one thing that animates his few remaining supporters and he's acted as though judicial nominations are infected with some deadly virus. Get with it and announce some nominees. He has 12 months left. That's it. After July of 2008, his term will be effectively over. What's wrong with these people?

I'm not jumping up and down demanding more nominees, although more nominees would be fine. The Conrad nomination is pending, and if the White House wants to announce that there will be no Fourth Circuit nominees until the Conrad nomination is processed, then that would make some sense. On the other hand, more nominees might put additional pressure on the Senate to get moving.

More nominees could conceivably slow down the Conrad nomination, since it would allow the Dems to pick and choose which nominees to process for the 4th Circuit.

Generally speaking, I view Pres. Bush as a motorist here. Why demand that he keep the gas tank more than half full? As long as there's some gas in the tank (i.e. nominees in the Senate) then the automobile can keep moving, right?

In '01-'02, the White House filled the pipeline with COA nominees, and Leahy cherry-picked the ones he wanted, and left Boyle, Roberts, Owen etal hanging for two years.

I am confident Leahy will deal here, so make the offer good enough and he'll bite. Finish off the 6th CC by appointing Kethledge and White, approve Keisler, pick 2 from the Virginia list and approve them. Then let the donks pick the 1st COA nominee, so they get 2 judges in the deal. Southwick and Elrod also get votes. Do that to finish off the year, throw in some district courts seats if need be. Then agree to 1 per month CC nominees thru June.

The alternative is to get about 4 more CC judges before Leahy shuts the whole thing down. I'm open to other packages, but losing the election put us in this position, so let's face facts and get something done. My ultimate goal is to get Bush to the same # of CC appointments over his two terms that Clinto got - I think we have 11 or 12 more to go.

if you put forward solid nominees, then even if the democrats are picking and choosing, they can't help but proceed with individuals we would like to see on the bench. The following set of nominees were confirmed in 2002, the last time Leahy et al were running the show on the judiciary committee.

Clifton, Richard R.
Gibbons, Julia Smith
Howard, Jeffrey R.
McConnell, Michael W.
Melloy, Michael Joseph
O`Brien, Terrence L.
Raggi, Reena
Rogers, John M.
Shedd, Dennis W.
Smith, D[avid] Brooks
Smith, Lavenski R.

There are certainly some moderates on that list, such as Raggi and Lavenski Smith, but there are also some absolutely outstanding conservatives on that list as well, such as McConnell and Shedd. It's getting down to brass tacks now. The Democrats are favored in 2008 (sigh). Vacancies will likely be filled by a liberal President, supported by a Democrat majority Senate. I say make some nominations and maximize the possibility that some of these vacancies will be filled by nominees who understand the proper role of the judiciary in our Constitutional framework.

Especially to those of us who have been who have been warning and yelling about this for at least a year and a half, and worrying about it for longer than that, this whole spectacle is rather pathetic. Now that it's virtually too late, everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. This 4th Circuit train wreck has long been obvious to anyone who wanted to look. Those who advocated last year staying on the sinking Boyle-Haynes ship until it finally went down are now reaping the bitter fruits of that idiocy. Oh yeah, I forgot: we stood on principle and really taught those Democrats a lesson!

It's true, Luttig hurt things by not retiring earlier, but would the White House have bothered nominating anyone anyway? Is the Maryland seat now semi-officially a permanent Democrat one?

What to do now? The White House was typically inept by not nominating Conrad for months, then including him in a batch of four nominees, the others being from the 3rd, 5th and 7th. Hey, it's cherry picking time in the SJC (when they finally get around to it at all)! I have long argued in these pages for nominating ONLY 4th Circuit nominees until at least October. But who is going to listen to such sanity, let alone act on it? Much better to sit around and whine about the crisis we just discovered 'recently'. Or do virtually nothing at all, apparently the Bush administration's preferred strategy.

When Congress reconvenes in September, the Administration should nominate 2 or 3 more 4th Circuit nominees (S.C. and Virginia if Webb is on board)--and NO OTHER NOMINEES from other Circuits. It doesn't matter if the Dems cherry pick as long as they are cherry picking only among 4th Circuit nominees!!! As it is, they will probably process Tinder and Catharina Haynes before doing any 4th Circuit nominees, thanks to the flawed nomination timing I mentioned above.

Days elapsed since last CCA confirmation (Livingston): 91

I think cherry picking amongst the 4th circuit does matter, at least a little bit.

Conrad and Matthews (if nominated) would have at least a chance of getting through the SJC if they are processed in 2007. The 2 VA seats presumably have a shot in 2008 due to their 'consensus' status.

If given the choice, Leahy will push the 2 VA seats first, and then slam the door on Conrad in January due to his Thurmond rule. Why give him that option?

The SC seat, of course, is pretty much in Graham's hands, anyway.

When the Senate confirms more nominees in 97-98 than 05-06, they should bear the brunt of the blame.

Boyle, at least, should have been confirmed last year, but the gang sold him out.

is to get what he can in 07 and push these 4th Circuit guys in 08 when Leahy has said he's closing up shop. That would put pressure on the Dems if he nominates someone that both Warner and Webb have recommended. If he nominates two people for the 4th now they might get in this year and all the rest are dead. Maybe he's hoping to get a couple more of the pending ones now and then a couple on the 4th later.

I don't know if that strategy would work, but who knows.

More then Keisler, any white male conservative nominee to the Fourth Circuit will be described by the Dems as a needlessly "provocative" and "controversial" nominee. In the 1990's, the Dems were furious when Jesse Helms blocked three minority candidates from his own state (two blacks, one female) and one from Virginia (Roger Gregory). Ever since then, the Dem mantra has been "no white male nominees from southern states with sizable African-American populations". That's why Boyle, Pickering, Wallace and up to now Southwick have been blocked. If William Haynes had not been by blocked by Graham and McCain for other reasons, I think the Dems would have also blocked him for same reason they blocked Boyle, Pickering and company.

IMHO, the only way that Bush can get a nominee confirmed to a southern state is to nominate a minority or female. Look at who has been confirmed from southern states:

Texas - Edward Prado, Priscilla Owen
Louisiana - Edith Brown Clement
Alabama - William Pryor
Tennessee - Julia Smith Gibbons
Kentucky - John Smith
North Carolina - Allyson Duncan
Virginia - Roger Gregory

Only 2 of 8 confirmed Bush COA nominees from southern states have been white males (Pryor and Smith), and one of them (Pryor) almost didn't make it. Bush made a wise decision in nominating Jennifer Elrod and Catharina Haynes to the Fifth Circuit. He probably needs to reconsider Matthews from South Carolina. In addition, he would be foolish to nominate any white male outside of the Warner/Webb approved list.

Another reason to pick two quickly from the W/W list is that if Leahy bottles them up and the worst happens 11/08, we can block any of Hillary's picks by saying how "two bipartisan consensus picks were unilaterally and unfairly blocked".

You're mainly right about the non-viability of white southern male nominees by Bush. Hopefully Southwick and maybe Conrad (capital M in 'maybe') can get through. I think that Bush should look to conservative white female or hispanic nominees for the remaining 4th Circuit seats. There must be many qualified ones in the 4th Circuit.

There's no need to fool around any further with more african-american nominees for that Circuit: it's a political non-starter. Bush has already done that with Gregory (disastrous liberal appointment/capitulation that now endangers control of the Circuit) and Duncan. What credit does Bush get for those appointments. The answer: None! As usual. Their appetites whetted, the Democrats just demand more. As usual.

You're spot on that Matthews in S.C. would be a doomed nomination. Even the more moderate Kittredge would probably be demonized a la Southwick. Go for a conservative woman or hispanic nominee here.

has information about Southwick. I don't think there is anything new.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=21872

we get a couple VA nominees, or perhaps the SC nominee, when Southwick (and perhaps Elrod or Keisler) are confirmed in September. the problem is the Dems haven't deigned to confirm anyone in nearly 4 months (5 by the time they get back from their month-long holiday). we did get the Conrad/Stone/Haynes/Tinder fourome though.

Southwick and Keisler/Elrod in September (followed by more 4th circuit nominees)
1 or 2 of Keisler/Elrod/Tinder/Haynes in October
1 or 2 of those remaining above with Conrad/Stone added into the group in November/December

then the VA/SC nominees will be ready for consideration by January.

amazingly, while it leads off with the risible "moderate-to-liberal" idiocy, actually calls Gregory a Democrat appointee, instead of giving the false impression that he was Bush's pick. shocking for them to only give it a half-spin instead of the full turn!

where are the demands for the 4th circuit "moderate-to-liberals" to respect stare decisis?!? I'm sure its just oversight, and not hypocrisy though, right?

Can we block Hillary's VA nominees? If John Warner retires, there's a solid chance that state holds 2 Dim Senators.

I believe both those nominations will get through even if they are made this October. However, if they don't, they'll probably qualify for the token renomination.

Arkansas should probably count as a southern state as well. I know Lavenski Smith is african-american, but I don't know about Bobby Shepherd.

Judge Shepherd is a white male.

I don't really know how to count Arkansas as a Southern state when it comes to circuit court seats. I know for everything else we are a Southern state, but its hard to make that case when it is in the same circuit(8th) as the Dakotas. That said, the nominees for our seats have received a lot of praise from our democrat senators -- even when it was ideologically improbable. One example that comes to mind was Judge Holmes (I know he was a District Court nominee, but the principle still applies).

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007708090317

Finally, Judge Leslie Southwick's nomination will face full Senate

By U.S. Sen. Trent Lott
Special to The Clarion-Ledger

WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to allow Mississippi Judge Leslie Southwick to stand for the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The action means his nomination no longer is bottled up in the committee but is headed for a vote in the full Senate sometime this fall.

It's not a victory for Republicans or conservatives but for basic fairness and the kind of bipartisan statesmanship we need more of in the Senate today.

The committee vote was close, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, to her credit, cast the deciding vote to move forward with Judge Southwick.

Even though he's a conservative judge and she's a liberal senator, Sen. Feinstein, like me, hopes the Senate can move past partisan politics and return to confirming judges based on their character, education and experience.

Sen. Feinstein's decision is a credit to her character and leadership, and it should be commended and emulated.

Sen. Thad Cochran and I worked very hard behind the scenes to secure support for Judge Southwick. It isn't easy in a Senate that's been overcome with partisan stagnation, but the committee vote is a step in the right direction that I hope is a harbinger of things to come.

Judge Southwick has been attacked very unfairly by liberal activist groups. These groups have one purpose - to put judges on the bench who will enact laws to move their agenda. They know Judge Southwick is a "strict constructionist" who will interpret the law as written, no matter what the political fallout.

Though Judge Southwick had been unanimously confirmed to a lower federal court last year, many Democratic senators on the committee had refused to confirm Judge Southwick solely because liberal groups manufactured objections against him - recurring boiler-plate accusations they raise against every conservative nominee from Mississippi.

Those phony accusations have been debunked. Judge Southwick heads to the full Senate, having forthrightly confronted and addressed all the charges raised against his nomination.

Judge Southwick has served Mississippi for many years - as a judge and soldier who volunteered and served in Iraq. He's also a family man, a person of faith and a well-respected jurist whose character and reputation had never been attacked before President Bush nominated him for the 5th Circuit vacancy, on the recommendation of Sen. Cochran and me.

That he was always well respected until the liberal Washington-based groups attacked him, says more about Washington's current reputation than anything about Judge Southwick.

When the Senate reconvenes in September, I'm optimistic that most senators will not consider the raucous rhetoric and false charges that have been levied against Judge Southwick - charges those who made them know aren't true. I believe the Senate will rise to the higher standard that our Founding Fathers expected.

Our Founding Fathers saw the Senate as a place where passions and partisanship took a back seat to statesmanship. With no offense to the House of Representatives where I served for 16 years, the Senate is supposed to be the house of Congress where dignity, reason and, yes, bipartisan compromise, prevail.

It's time the Senate returned to our roots, grounded in fulfilling our duty to the American people by confirming good people like Judge Leslie Southwick to the bench.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Write to: U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, 487 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington DC 20510 (attn: press office).

Andrew, you know my favorite nominee for one of the VA seats is Prof. Stephen Smith, but it looks like it probably won't happen. It's a shame if it doesn't.

"Though Judge Southwick had been unanimously confirmed to a lower federal court last year..."

He's giving the SJC vote a little too much authority, don't you think?

I've added an update to the post.

The talk about the COA vacancies is appropriate, and probably should be our top focus. But let's not forget about the district openings - these slots are easier to fill, district judges consider weighty issues, and confirming the lower court openings help us create a longer term farm team. Push on them as we hammer for more COA confirmations.

I didn't mean you had to change the post, but thanks!

Hell, we'll just get Sessions or Larry Craig or someone to "hold' them then. They've done it before.

But Bush MUST pick the two best from the W/W list immediately. Such an easy victory in the spin wars, and such important seats to fill.

The whole 4th thing is just mind-boggling insanity, but the obvious answer is that if it's not SCOTUS, Bush doesn't think it's important, no matter what he reads off a teleprompter.

I wonder if he could give the full names & Circuit of ANY of the COA judges he's nominated. Owen, JRB, & Kavanaugh, maybe.

It is what it is. But that doesn't excuse how it still seems that not a single soul in this Admin is assigned to this area.

If Leahy really intends to claim the 4th as his prize, I don't think there is much we could have done about it, unless you are willing to ditch the other circuits. Otherwise, Leahy can and probably will just bump others up in the queue.

Outsider's strategy was basically correct: Only nominations to the 4th should have been made, instead of Elrod and Haynes. While it is probably that the above 2 will be quicker confirmations than just about anyone to the 4th, I'd say they're less important.

I do think it was a good idea pushing Conrad first, though, otherwise that 13 year vacancy is going to continue.

1) Fill the pipeline and let the Dems pick from a long list.

2) Try to control the pipeline and force the Dems to pick some 4th circuit nominees.

I've spent a lot of time the past couple nights thinking about it and I think we are past #2. I just don't think the Dems are that moldable on the issue. I also think that Leahy wants a "victory" of confirming some of Bush's nominees.

I'm willing to give him that in order to fill more slots.

The third way to go on this is something that I've mentioned from time to time:

3) Fill all the Judicial Emergency vacancies with nominees. Then you can push and prod and say over and over again on TV that LEAHY IS BLOCKING JUDICIAL EMERGENCIES and Leahy will respond by pushing people through OR he will give Republicans a campaign issue.

Oz

www.first-cut-politics.blospot.com

(email from PFAW pasted in part)

Checks, Balances and the Rule of Law: Are These Foreign Concepts?

Let's get right into it. In the final days and weeks of Congress before adjourning for the August recess, there were some positive steps taken, but there were some pretty egregious missteps as well. Here we go...

Independent Judiciary

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10-9 to send the nomination of Leslie Southwick to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to the full Senate for a vote. Southwick has a record that's hostile to civil rights, plain and simple. The Senate should approach EVERY Bush nomination with severe skepticism after witnessing the damage done by Roberts and Alito in the disastrous 2006-07 term of the Supreme Court, but apparently that skepticism, coupled with the clear concerns Southwick's record raises, was not enough to keep Dianne Feinstein from joining the Republicans on the Committee to send this nomination to the floor.

Sen. Feinstein's hope that Southwick will uphold civil rights and act in Americans' best interest was an inadequate reason to support the nomination. One would think that the confirmations of Roberts and Alito taught senators that when it comes to federal judges, they should err on the side of caution. This is a lifetime appointment. Hoping for the best is not sufficient.

We hope you will join us in pressuring all senators to do the right thing for the country and REJECT the confirmation of Leslie Southwick.

The Southwick seat, the Boyle/Conrad seat, Alito's old seat, and the MI 2 are all emergency vacancies.

Hasn't caused Leahy to budge an inch.

Can the 2 CA vacancies be possible 08 nominations?

I'm inclined to think no, as even if DiFi is on board, Babs Boxer will try to squash anyone, and Leahy is more likely to comply with the latter.

Difi's prescence on the committee, though, might force his hand.

Recess appointments should be made to every vacant seat that appears to be a target of the Dems' obstruction. That means the 2 Michigan COA seats, possibly Keisler, and possibly Southwick. Perhaps not at this time, but certainly if these vacancies persist as we approach 2008.

Hey Andrew, how about a discussion of Abigail Alliance? Griffith's dissent in the original decision last year put him on the SCOTUS short list for me, and his majority opinion now places him near the top of my short list: JRB, Estrada, McConnell, Eid, Easterbrook, Griffith, Gorsuch, Kimberly Moore, Rosenthal, Colloton.

I know Pryor didn't a few years back, but he was involved personally in the case.

If so, we need at least that 6th vote on the 4th circuit for Gitmo cases.

As a recess appointment, Pryor was capable of sitting in ony any en banc decisions. In the case where the 11th Circuit evaluated his recess-appointment status, he of course was excused.

If Bush wanted, he could recess appoint people to five of the open Fourth Circuit seats right now during the August recess. The problem with that situation though is that it would cause the Dems to retaliate, probably by stopping all future judicial confirmations. That could be very detrimental in the long run. What good are conservative judges if they get immediately replaced by liberal ones in 2009 by President Hillary?

In general, I think only Keisler and Southwick should be recess appointed any time soon. Each has a documented history of unwarratned obstruction, and neither has blue-slip problems that could be spun as "extraordinary circumstances". On the other hand, the Dems can say that Kethledge, Murphy and Stone have been validly blocked due to blue-slip objections by their two Dem homestate senators. If any of those three were recess-appointed, it would only muddy the waters and encourage more Dem retaliation for basically three useless 17 month judicial tenures.

I agree with you on K/M, and Stone. Nothing can be gained by recess appointing them, and I don't know if we have much to gain from recess appointing Keisler, either.

But the 4th is a different story. If Conrad is not confirmed by December, we cannot lose the critical Guantanemo cases. As it is now, we still need Allison Duncan's vote, or one of the Clinton appointments.

I'm glad we got around to this issue. Historically, since Congress was is session for less days than today and the recesses were of longer duration, the recess appointment was a way to fill a critical position (SCOTUS justice) before Congress returned to business. Essentially it gave a person a headstart on their jobs. (I believe Justice Oliver Holmes received such an appointment to make the October term.) In other words it wasn't used to block obstruction but to fill a critical need early by someone who would eventually be confirmed.

The only person now who fits the bill is Southwick. Keisler would also be a candidate, however the Court Security bill is not yet law so Feinstein's deal is not final. GWB should have McCain (and whatever gang he has assembled) over to the Crawford ranch and work out a deal to get Southwick a confirmation vote. Then he could argue that there is a judicial emergency and Southwick has bi-partisan support for confirmation and my recess appointment is made only for Judge Southwick to get started a month early to alleviate the case load of the 5th Circuit.

The Judge Southwick can start work now and also be confirmed in September. The far left would go wild which is what we want them to do anyway.

I invite my ConfirmThem.com friends (I think I have a few!?) to read my post at Hugh Hewitt's blog.

Is it impressive that he got less than 1/3 when the biggest players didn't participate? That seems like a fairly tough spin to me.

Is this really "dirty"?

Soon after that we learned that Ron Paul had (before today) encouraged his supporters to ride other candidates' buses (read Romney), go to that candidates' table, get a $35 ticket from that candidate, and then vote for Ron Paul! At a minimum, both of these dirty tricks are unethical.

I have no idea how this stufff is supposed to work, But is a candidate supplying buses supposed to only carry people who pledge to vote for that candidate? Seems like that's the chance you take in any sort of GOTV activity like that. Maybe a deeper explanation of the process would help.

Courtesy of How Appealing,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/10/AR200708...

"[Obama] is, however, unoriginal and unjust regarding the nomination of Leslie Southwick."

Is saying/promising you're going to vote for a candidate, take a $35 ticket from that candidate, and then vote for someone else--is any of that ethical? It sounds like lying and cheating to me.

My guess is that any one who got on a bus--Romney or Brownback--having previously said they'd vote for a certain candidate--was also lying.

Did you see Governor Romney with Chris Wallace today? While you would probably call it that much more spin, he indicated that the three other so called top tier candidates--Thompson (hasn't announced yet), McCain (is toast, just hasn't realized it), and Rudy (Iowans don't forget when people diss their strawpoll [Rudy called it a "shakedown"]--not actively participating enhanced his win. If an army withdraws from a field before a battle, giving victory to another comabatant, the withdrawing army is acknowledging greater strength in its opponent. Plus, how many Romney supporters stayed away on a 100 heat index day believing their candidate didn't need their vote? Plus, this still--any way you slice it--is a win that provides momentum for the caucuses for Governor Romney.

Again I have no clue how things work in these weird Iowa deals - maybe people always expect the candidates to pay for this "fundraiser". But it seems weird to me that this would be considered a "normal" conversation:
Potential voter: I plan to participate in the straw poll.
Romney volunteer: We'll pay you $35 to vote for Mitt.
~~~ (later)
Voter: Sorry. I ended up deciding to vote for X.
Volunteer: You crook - we paid you to vote for Mitt.
Isn't that in effect what you're saying?

Again, maybe stuff like this is normal there and it just got brought more to the forefront this time around. Maybe if this was some sort of true vote instead of a fundraiser disguised as a vote there wouldn't be all these shenanigans going on. As it is, it seems like the question is which is worse: a) offering a bribe, b) taking a bribe, or c) taking a bribe but not doing the quid pro quo?

In any case, if candidates were explicitly or implicitly coordinating lying such as you described, I agree that's totally sleazy. If a few people decided to do it because they're jerks, well then I figure that's just a cost of doing business.

called the Iowa Strawpoll a shakedown when it was described to him by an Iowa GOP leader. The Iowa leader said, "In Iowa we call it a fund raiser." Some people might find that exchange funny, because maybe Rudy's comment contains a kernel of truth. But Iowa folks aren't going to cotton to that.

It's the way the game has been played for several decades.

As far as it being "bribery," it's a helpful fundraiser (there's that word again) for the Iowa GOP. Yes, I would have paid to vote for Mitt. I don't consider it to be a bribe. Again, that's the way the game is played.