ConfirmThem

We need real player to use those links which I don't have on here.

Post updates if you get a chance.

BTW, does anyone know what happened in the business meeting?

I'm incredibly busy through the end of the month, so probably won't be able to follow things very closely.

His first question to Wallace is on Wallace's sensitivity to the needs of the poor. Wallace states he could have made a lot more money in places other than in MS but went there to help make MS a better place.

Voting rights: The statute said that if no redistricting could be worked out, then representatives had to be elected at large. No desire to dilute African American votes was intended. That was just the statute.

Anonymous quotes in ABA rating: Can't really respond to anonymous partial quotes that he is insensitive. He defers to the lawyers from MS who showed up on his behalf to say he is a nice guy.

Quotes that he is narrow minded and inflexible: His cases usually get settled. Narrow minded and intransigent lawyers don't get hired.

Ability to be free from bias and follow precedent: Freedom from bias is difficult for him to understand. He's a partner in the most integrated law firm in the state. His children go to the most integrated school in the state.

Wallace's opinion on the NQ rating from the ABA: He does not believe they lived up to the standards they expressed and had no opportunity to rebut the charges. The two Senators who spoke and the other lawyers who will speak on his behalf will speak for him.

Contact w/ ABA: The ABA did not contact Judge McConnell as they were supposed to. Eventually they did. Other people they were supposed to call were not contacted.

Were there material mistatements of fact in the ABA report: Their characterizations of the cases was inaccurate. The opinions of people are probably not well founded, but, in any case he was not given an opportunity to rebut them.

Bob Jones defense: It was a defense of the principles of statutory construction, not a defense of discriminatory practices.

Voting Rights Act support: His client's position in the litigation was not out of bounds. Another attorney who advanced it in LA was promptly confirmed by the Senate who rejected those stautory interpretations in legislation.

Missed one.

Confidentiality concerns from Legal Services Corporation (LSC): Lott has not claimed any privilege for that work and Wallace has been open about it.

LSC work and arguing it should be abolished: He has suppored the corporation and has not acted in any way inconsistent w/ that. He has worked to reform it to get it out of politics and into helping people. The reforms have contributed to its survival.

LSC is unconstitutional?: Not the organization. The appointment mechanism before the board could be unconstitutional. By declaring the LSC officers were not federal officers, they could be immune from removal.

Lobbying for the LSC: What he did was agree to Reagan's budget and send people to DC to lobby for that budget. This common across government agencies.

Specter's comments on the ABA report: Specter has concerns about the ABA's impartiality and has letters from them admitted into the record.

Senator Leahy's remarks re: Executive meeting

This is the Judiciary Committee's third markup in the last eight days. I cooperated with the markup last Tuesday as the Chairman's scheduled a Special Executive Business Meeting. I came to the meeting and established the quorum. The Chairman had said that the meeting would be held to burn holds on two non-controversial circuit court nominees. I agreed to try to expedite consideration of the nomination of Kent Jordan, a nominee to the Third Circuit. Peter Keisler's nomination to the DC Circuit is, however, by no means non-controversial. Nonetheless, in an effort to work with the Chairman I stayed and discussed the Republican hold on that nomination. ... [big snippage]

I do want to acknowledge the kinds words of the Majority leader who noted just last night that we have made "tremendous progress on confirming qualified judicial nominees."

Senator Kennedy

Did you support a reduction in the LSC budge? Wallace can't remember the specific number. He did move funds around in the budget to meet needs. He did hire lawyers to lobby. Teddy is concerned Wallace was hiring lawyers to lobby and cutting services.

Bob Jones case: How is it that an institution that discriminates on the basis of race could be eligible for federal funds? Bob Jones was both religious and educational. It was not necessary that it was charitable. The only question was the interpretation of the statute. Teddy wants to know if Wallace still beats his wife...if he still believes that discriminatory institutions are eligible for favorable tax status. Wallace says he never believed that as a personal opinion. The dissent and concurrence of SCOTUS saw merit in his legal argument.

Voting Rights Act: Teddy gives a lecture on Wallace's case history. He states that Congress instituted an "effects test" in Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. This was the position of the Republican Party of MS. He can support the effects test as constitutional. Basically Teddy is upset that judges' opinions slap down his legal interpretations on cases that he loses. Wallace says that he did manage to persuade 3 members of the court of this position so its certainly not outside of the bounds of reasonable legal interpretation. He has taken cases on the other side of the Voting Rights Act. He may not like that MS has to submit redistricitng to the DC Circuit, but he understands that Congress can do that.

Something on prison inspections I missed. Wallace wrote a letter as a staffer that he said did not stop any inspections.

Senator Brownback

Softball question. Why do people hate you so on voting rights? The issues that people notice are the ones where the Republican party has gotten on the opposite sides of cases with African-American voters. There are other cases where they are on the same side. His church partners with an African-American church to do work in Honduras (Wallace has gone for the last 4 years) and build Habitat for Humanity houses. He says he has been active in racial reconciliation.

Senator Sessions

"The ABA rating should not be an embarrassment to you; it should be an embarrassment to them." Points out Wallace could have gotten a job in New York or DC if he had so chosen.

Pumpkin time for me. I trust someone else will listen and report on the rest.

Nice work, War_Priest. Thanks for the updates.

Any news re the executive business meeting??

According to a SJC staffer, only Jordan, Jarvey and Lioi were voted out of committee. He said that no action was taken on any of the others. He was hesistant to say why. When asked, he said some might be reconsidered on Thursday.

Kay Daly of Coalition for a Fair Judiciary reports the following about today's meeting:

"At today's markup, 8 Republicans were present -- Hatch came late, cast his vote, and then left and was not present when Specter made his statement about having only eight of the ten Republicans present while Leahy was in the anteroom. It was Coburn rather than Brownback who did not come. Coburn was chairing a subcommittee hearing."
"Leahy stepped away after making some speech about how this Admin has gotten through more nominations than any other Administration. Gets up to go away and take medicine cause he says he cannot breathe or some such thing."

The Chairman said "If there had been 10 Republicans there instead of 8, Boyle, Haynes and Myers could have been voted out today."

Boyle, Haynes, and Myers will be voted out on Thursday. There will be 10 Republicans guarenteed. So what. Frist hasn't even filed a cloture motion on Smith. Do we think he will file one for Boyle, Haynes, and Myers? If so it will be on Friday and unless someone plans to be in the Senate next week those nominees will be returned to the WH. Four weeks of spinning their wheels. Which is tragic since Boyle and Smith have the 60 votes to clear cloture.

I am angered by the performance, or rather lack of performance, by certain Republican senators during this afternoon's business meeting and confirmation hearings.

You would think that after a previous business meeting in which votes could not be taken due to a lack of quorum, that ALL of the Republican senators would be in place today to vote Keisler, Boyle, etc. out of committee. But nooooooooo! Where were Hatch and Coburn when we needed them? I am very suspicious about both their absences.

As I have said before, I think most of these meetings are staged. The events of today seem to bare this out. For someone who supposedly wants Boyle and company confirmed, couldn't Hatch have stayed a few more minutes to help vote them out of committee? How about Coburn? For someone who earlier prodded Leahy about not allowing a vote on Boyle and company last week, his absence is almost inexcusable. If he had a conflict, why couldn't he have made arrangements with Specter to make a token appearance just to cast some votes?

I know I appear cynical, but I am getting the impression that Republicans are taking turns missing business meetings on purpose in order to dely dealing with The Controversial Five before the November election. That way, no one Republican senator can be blamed. To make matters worse, I think they are now also scared about acting on Keisler. Odd how the committee could find enough members to vote out only some noncontroversial nominees, but not enough to vote out anyone with a little tension in his nomination, huh? The whole thing sounds phony and contrived to me.

As MarkN notes, Boyle and company (as well as Keisler) could be voted out of committee on Thursday, but so what? Thursday does not leave enough time to debate, let alone vote on, any of them in the full Senate before the election break. I think Frist and the Republicans in the SJC want it this way. That way they can claim to conservatives that they did all they could to move the nominees without having to really force a confrontation with the Democrats. The fact that they are now even afraid to push Keisler is disgusting. Any Republican senator got a backbone out there?

My next complaint concerns the hearings of Wallace and Bryant. I caught the last third of Wallace's. He did a good job. He was reasonable and articulate, but where were the senators? Only Cornyn and Sessions were present. There were no other Republicans or Democrats. While both Cornyn and Sessions did a good job attacking the ABA representatives, the hearing would've had much more impact if the rest of the Republican senators were there to lambast the ABA as well, especially Specter. Did some not want to overly antagonize the ABA? Seems like it. By the time Bryant came up, basically only Sessions was there. Here was a wonderful opportunity to rip the ABA evaluation system to shreds, and six of the Republicans on the committee chose instead to be mysteriously absent. Such a wasted opportunity to force a change in the ABA rating system!

Question: How likely is is that Bush will be able to get any court nominees through the Senate if the Dems control it after this election?

I would understand that the type of nominee would have to change (i.e., we'd need more moderate nominees), but would the Dems just stall and try not to schedule any votes at all through 2008? Or would they have to at least vote on a few?

Again it is too much for me to expect votes, I now just want our party to show up for the committee meetings that they currently control.

The only Circuit nominee that will get out before recess is Jordan.

After the election I am holding out hope for Keisler, Smith and Boyle, but realistically I know that none will probably happen.

If Frist and Leahy (good team) make comments about how prolific they have been with confirming nominees it is up to all of us here to expose that spin.

Can Senators who are absent from SJC meetings vote by proxy through one of the others?

While this is the second special executive meeting on Tuesdays, where were the 10 Republicans? While I know this is a busy week for Congress as they wrap up legislative issues, the progress is nothing short of glacial [before global warming].Bobo hit the nail on the head--the fix is in. The staged production of the SJC hearing is a joke.

Specter's agenda, like last week's agenda is impossible. What did we have last week, sixteen nominees? One circuit and three district nominees were voted out of committee. This week he schedules the remaining twelve nominees and adds two more ABA challenged nominees with numerous witnesses. There was no possiblilty of substantial movement today with that overly optimistic agenda. One circuit and two district court nominees, all of whom are noncontroversial, dribble out of committee today.

Regardless of what happens on Thursday, the best that we can hope for is that the 4 nominees last week and the 3 nominees today will be pushed through the full Senate by week's end. The rest will wait.

With a Republican President and a Senate with 55 Republicans, the legacy of the 109th Congress regarding the judiciary will be remembered as follows: "So few people accomplished so little with so much."

As I have said before, I think most of these meetings are staged.

I am shocked ... shocked at this possibility.

This is an election pressure time, not a "get 'r done" pressure time. Actions speak louder than words, watch what passes the Senate between now and the start of the 110th Congress. Judges are low on that list. Maintaining good relations with the opposition is a significant factor in Senate relations. You wonder if this is scripted? Not in great detail, no. But it's a special clique.