Vacancy in the Ocean State
By AndrewHyman Posted in News — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Judge Bruce M. Selya of Rhode Island, who took senior status on the First Circuit ten months ago, has some advice for the Senate, according to the Providence Journal:
This is not a political game. The courts and the country and the state need these judges, and the question ought to be not who makes these nominations but the quality of the nominees....If this president or any future president nominates a first-class person, then that man or woman deserves to be considered on the merits and not held up because someone is waiting for some kind of political accommodation to be made.
Apparent front-runners for Selya's 1st Circuit seat are U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente and District Court Judge William E. Smith.
Meanwhile, in Mississippi, Sid Salter of the Clarion Ledger has an article about Judge Charles Pickering's new book. Salter quotes Charles Evers: "If you are interested in promoting better race relations, you should read Charles Pickering's story."
it was too late 10 months ago
by zendari
The minute Chafee, Whitehouse, and Reed decided to hold out for their pal Flanders.
They really don't have to worry though...Flanders will get his appointment in 2009 one way or another.
Regardless of timing
by BoBo
Regardless of the unfortunately late timing of such a nomination, Bush should still nominate a conservative to Selya's open COA seat. Bush needs a nominee for EVERY open COA seat by January 2008. Then the Dems can figure out which 2 or 3 they will confirm.
What is possible and what is not
by BoBo
After Southwick, Elrod, Tinder and Haynes are confirmed, there will be no more "noncontroversial" nominees left to confirm. The Dems consider all of the rest of the nominees (Keisler, Kethledge, Murphy, Conrad, Stone, Getchell and Matthews) to be "controversial". This trend will continue of Bush nominates Rosenstein to the Maryland seat and anyone other than Flanders for the Rhode Island seat. Because of the blue slip policy, my guess is that only nominees free from it will be confirmed in 2008. At this point, that means Keisler, Conrad and Matthews.
Last January, Posner and Sykes in the 7th Circuit voted to uphold Indiana's voter I.D. law against the wishes of Clinton appointeee Terence Evans. Now the Supreme Court has voted to grant cert. I hope the 7th Circuit opinion is upheld. There is no good reason why someone cannot provide a government issued I.D. to vote. The Indiana law even allows someone to file an "indigency affidavit" in lieu of producing I.D. That sounds fair to me.
Court to consider lethal injection case
by zendari
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070925/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_lethal_injecti...
So much for Gregg v. Georgia and so called precedent.
Flander's mistaken identity
by WJF
As a Rhode Island resident, I don’t know why anyone would suggest Flanders is not a conservative. Flanders wrote more dissents than anyone in memory. I suppose his opinion on SOP could be viewed as libertarian but he has made no qualms about being a conservative (which isn’t easy in RI).
Word here is that Flanders is being shunned because the president doesn’t like Chafee (can’t say I blame him). But that shouldn’t be a reason to deny the 1st circuit a great judge. Besides, Corrente or Smith will never get confirmed. The sad part is, the WH knows this as well as I do. If they don’t they should read today’s politico –
"Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said there has been little progress, at least from his perspective, in finding a nominee for the First Circuit appeals court.
"'It is a lifetime appointment, and in 15 months, we will be able to have a nominee by whom we will have a serious voice, with a White House that is interested in listening to the Senate's point of view,' Whitehouse said. 'It is
not my place to offer up names absent what I consider to be a serious discussion.'"
"Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, last week said the time might have passed already for the White House to successfully nominate candidates for a vacancy on the U.S. District Court in Providence and for the vacant 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals seat long held by a Rhode Islander."
"Whitehouse, a former U.S. Attorney and Rhode Island attorney general, spoke at the Roger Williams University School of Law last week, and afterward he was asked if the Bush administration had reached the point at which it’s too late to make those appointments.
“I think we’ve reached it, particularly based on the process we’ve gone through so far,” Whitehouse replied. “There has been zero meaningful discussion between the White House and the Senate on these appointments.”
With the presidential elections coming up in November 2008, some question whether Senate Democrats would confirm a Bush nominee at this point. Also, senators have the ability to block or “blue-slip” nominees from their home state, so the administration would need support from Whitehouse and Democratic Sen. Jack Reed.
Whitehouse said, “There are new people at the White House who may be interested in compromise, but so far we have not seen any signs of their being interested in working on a consensus candidate for the 1st Circuit or for the District Court. And when you consider that time is as short as it is, why we would consider a lifetime appointment for a Bush appointee in the waning days of the administration when they haven’t even worked with us, just doesn’t make sense.”"