ConfirmThem

Pretty big free speech (Ten Commandments related) case from here headin' to SCOTUS. http://www.sltrib.com/ci_8757127 I imagine the case is Summum v Pleasant Grove.

Offhand, I dunno how they will/should rule, though the facts of the case appear to be pretty straight-forward.

Maybe use the Breyer "pre-existing" standard from the previous 10C's cases?

Was McConnell part of the 10th panel that overturned the District judge?

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

Well folks, it is March 31st and where do we stand? So far this year, the Senate has confirmed a total of ZERO judicial nominees. As of today, there a 50 current judicial vacancies including 14 COA and 36 DC openings. This includes 19 judicial emergencies which no one ever discusses.

On the Senate Executive Calendar, there are three groups of nominees that are being held up. Four nominees for the Federal Election Committee have been pending since 9/26/07. The will be stalled indefinitely. Seven nominees for the Broadcasting Board of Governors have been pending since 2/13/08. The same fate awaits them. Four nominees for the judiciary [district court seats] have been pending since 3/6/08. They continue to languish as well.

On the day President Clinton left office, the Senate had confirmed 64 COA judges who were actively serving, of which 60 continue to be actively serving the nation today. Currently, President Bush has only 52 COA judges actively serving. While the Dems talk about fairness, no one expects any major action to be taken regarding COA seats in the next nine months.

A few weeks ago, Sen. Specter hinted that he may initiate an interruption of SJC work by not showing up for meetings thereby preventing a quorum. NEWSFLASH TO ARLEN--THE DEMS INITIATED A WORK SLOWDOWN ON THE SJC IN JANUARY AND FORGOT TO TELL YOU! Arlen's brainstorm is nothing more than a cleverly disguised brain cramp.

Has anyone here at CT recently talked to or emailed any Republican Senators on the SJC to find out if any of them have a plan this year to move the nominees? We cannot tolerate the mythical 6 month Thurmond rule to be supplanted by the actual 12 month Leahy rule without a fight. Could things possibly move any slower? The lead article appears to me to be a committee slap [cousin of the bench slap] from Hatch to Specter. WAKE UP ARLEN AND GIVE US A PLAN.

Since Alito was confirmed, Arlen Specter has repeatedly pounded on his chest about the slowdown in judicial confirmations, but to no avail. Why? I don't think he really cares. He is more interested in legislation than judges. He views judges as distractions.

Since telling successive annual meetings of the Federalist Society that he would get first Michael Wallace (long since withdrawn and replaced successfully with Leslie Southwick) and then Peter Keisler confirmed, I have lost a lot of respect for him. IMHO, Specter just makes a lot of noise when his fellow Republicans on the SJC start getting angry with him. What has he actually accomplished on the COA level? What controversial appelate nominee has he really gone to bat for? Lott and Cochran got Southwick through, not Specter.

I know some will point to Specter as a reason why Roberts and Alito were confirmed, but I don't buy it. You can't count Roberts or Alito as Specter successes because both were done deals in a Senate with a 55-45 Republican advantage. The Dems would've looked like fools filibustering a Supreme Court nominee with those numbers against them.

In the present set of circumstances, I see Specter doing little else with judges after the confirmations of Haynes, Pratter and Agee. He probably wouldn't even be pushing Pratter if it wasn't for the fact that he wants to get his protegee Carolyn Short a district court judgeship.

Courtesy of How Appealing,

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1206960400350

"The "youngest" of the federal appellate courts soon will be showing its age as two-thirds of its members qualify for retirement or senior status in the next two years, presenting a rare opportunity for the next president to shape that court.

In a recent speech, Judge Kimberly Moore, the newest judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, noted the startling statistic that eight of her court's 12 members either are eligible now or will become eligible for senior status within the next two years."

"The court may soon face another type of personnel change. The patent reform bill awaiting Senate floor action would eliminate the unique requirement that Federal Circuit judges live within 50 miles of Washington, D.C., thus potentially broadening the pool of those eligible and willing to serve on the court."

Looks like Sanford is very unlikely:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/politics_nation/2008/03/graham_on_sanfo...

When everything in the Senate is held up until we get some CCA judges moved?

contained the following:

“As we seek to help the Iraqi people stand up a stable government, we should not neglect our own by allowing vacancies on federal courts to go unfilled. Three months into the New Year, the Senate has not confirmed a single judicial nominee of any kind, and it’s held only one hearing on a circuit nominee since September of last year. The process, it appears, has ground to a halt. This is unacceptable, it’s unfair, and the excuses we’ve heard for it aren’t convincing.

“Some nominees have waited hundreds of days for a simple hearing, including those who satisfy the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s specific criteria for quick action, such as the strong support of home-state senators. These vacancies need to be filled, especially in places that have been declared judicial emergencies, such as on the Fourth Circuit, where one out of every three seats is currently vacant.

“Nominees for seats on the Fourth Circuit — which covers North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and South Carolina — are ready, well qualified, and they have been waiting and waiting and waiting.

“Since the Committee has nearly stopped holding even simple hearings for circuit court nominees for the last several months, it should make up for lost time by holding hearings for more than one circuit court nominee at a time, as both Democratic and Republican Chairman have done in the past. That way, we can get these nominees confirmed.

“It’s time our friends on the other side stop blaming others for their own failures to act on judicial nominations. If they don’t, Republicans will be forced to consider other options.

“The Senate faces difficult challenges domestically and internationally. Conventional wisdom says we won’t address them because it’s an election year. And experience suggests that some of our friends on the other side will prefer political efforts to bipartisan accomplishments.

A few months back, I called every Republican member of the Judiciary Committee and asked them to speed up confirmations. And I was belittled by the people on here for wasting my time.

Apparently my efforts were of little use, but I bet if we all did it, it would rattle some cages.

On many occasions in the past, I have called the Republican senators on the SJC in order to speed the confirmation of various judicial nominees. Basically, I learned that the various senate staffer offer a variety of platitudes and nothing else.

During the last five months of the 109th Congress, I frequently called concerning the nomination of Peter Keisler. What good did it do? None as far as I can tell. In September of 2006 before the midterm election, Republican senators on purpose did not attend most of the executive business meetings so they could avoid dealing with the nominations of Keisler, Boyle, Haynes, Wallace and Smith. The end result? Nothing.

It is sad to know that when Specter and the Republicans on the SJC had their best opportunity to fast-track Keisler, they did NOTHING. To make matters worse, after the Dems won the November election, Specter refused to process any of the five nominees during the lame-duck remainder of the session. This tells me that Republican senators just want to give lip service to judges. In reality, they don't want to expend any political capital on them.

today. He was going to talk about the veepstakes. I missed it (duty/job called). Did anyone hear it? I haven't been able to find anything re Novak's insights on this matter on the web.

Everyone knows that the issues of judges reasonates with the voters. Most reasonable people do not want judges legislating from the bench, but they would rather have legislators passing laws. The legislators are subject to recall by the voters and bad laws can be changed. Federal judges cannot be recalled by the voters. People across America fully understand these basic constitutional principles.

Since the Republicans lost the Senate in 2006, they have no drive to push through COA nominees. Last year, I think 6 COA judges were confirmed. All were uncontroversial, except for Southwick who was pushed through by Lott just before his planned resignation. The Dems may have approved Southwick just to get rid of Lott.

The above-mentioned articles and articles written by Hatch and McConnell should have sritten and given by Specter. Under his so-called leadership, we can't even get a few district court judges confirmed for crying out loud. Specter should resign. Hatch should replace him as Kyl and others on the SJC remain strangely silent.

The next three months will be the most critical of the year. Perhaps we should make phone calls to the Republican Senators on the SJC asking them to either move the nominees immediately or resign. These spineless drones act like the Dems control Congress 80-20. Progress could not be any slower with a total of ZERO confirmations. Mark my words, this will be the worst single year for judicial nominees in over 100 years. Let's see Arlen pound his chest on that fact. Nice going, Mr. Chairman.

What was the worst single year for judicial confirmations since 1900 or 1950 in terms of total judges and COA judges?