Tuesday in the Judiciary Committee
By AndrewHyman Posted in District Courts — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
On September 26, both a special business meeting and a hearing are scheduled.
Hopefully, the special business meeting on Tuesday will report out several circuit court nominees, like Judge Terrence Boyle who has been waiting forever. Recent nominees Peter Keisler and Kent Jordan will also be ready for a committee vote on Tuesday. And, both William "Gerry" Myers and William "Jim" Haynes will probably be discussed at the Tuesday business meeting as well. Background info about these nominees is here.
As for the hearing on Tuesday, district court nominee Vanessa Bryant will likely be among those on the agenda, according to the Hartford Courant. She's a state court judge who's backed by Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell. This is another instance where anonymous people are saying that a nominee isn’t qualified. Note what Senator Specter said about the nomination of Michael Wallace a few weeks ago:
I do not think they oughta be anonymous if we're to base a Senate judgment on them. It does not give the nominee a chance to defend himself.
Judge Bryant would be the only African-American woman on the federal trial bench in New England. Here’s what Norm Pattis (editor of the blog Crime and Federalism) wrote in an op/ed for the Hartford Courant:
We have a very clubby federal bar in Connecticut. Vanessa Bryant may not be a member of that club, but that's not a reason to hide behind "off the record" comments and seek to derail her candidacy. If we're going to debate her candidacy, let's name names. This cloak and dagger whispering campaign is juvenile and petty.
Pattis notes that there are "plenty of horse whisperers afraid to speak publicly."
Bryant and Wallace
by Dave II
I'm pleased that Bryant is finally getting her hearing. She seems clearly qualified for the job.
If Bryant is there, then I'm sure Wallace will be there as well. This hearing should kill two ABA preemptive strikes with one blow. Both nominees are obviously qualified, and both are being sabotaged by a clandestine whispering campaign about "temperament," which is so flexible and vague as to be an empty vessel, meaning nothing and everything to each accuser.
Wallace (5th Circuit)
by Nomination Observer
FYI (and slightly off topic), the ABA re-issued its unanimous "not qualified" rating for Michael Wallace, nominee for the 5th Circuit. See the last page of this report:
http://www.abanet.org/scfedjud/ratings109.pdf
The controversy begins again?
Tomorrow's agenda for the SJC should provide for a lot of excitement.
First up at 2:30, the committee will weed through the nominations of Boyle, Myers, Haynes, Keisler and Jordan to see who deserves to be voted out. I bet Keisler, Jordan, Jarvey and Lioi get voted out, but Boyle, Myers and Haynes get delayed until Thursday because of a lack of time to discuss them.
Second at 3:30, Bryant and Wallace will get hearings. I think Specter would be smart to start the hearings off with Bryant in order to address the ABA's flawed evaluation techniques without tainting the initial debate with charges of racism against Wallace.
Let's hope for a productive day.
Going back to the issue of 5th Circuit vacancies, there are five others who are eligible for senior status, and we should encourage them to do so now rather than later:
Carolyn Dineen King, Grady Jolly, Eugene Davis, Jacques Wiener, and James Dennis.
Come on, judges, move it along!