ConfirmThem

I believe there's a press conference happening at 1:15 on judges in Rm 192 of Dirksen, at least according to a CWA press release. Does anyone have eyes or ears on it and can report?

CWA Joins Members of Congress to Support 4th Circuit Court Nominee

WASHINGTON, June 18 /Christian Newswire/ -- On Thursday, June 19, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, along with U.S. Senators Arlen Specter, Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr, will join together to demonstrate support for Fourth Circuit Court nominee, Judge Robert Conrad.

DATE:
Thursday, June 19
TIME:
1:15 p.m.
WHERE:
Dirksen Senate Office Building
Room 192

Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America (CWA), will join the Senators and other concerned organizations and professional associates.

Members of Congress will discuss Judge Robert Conrad's high qualifications and tenured experience. Judge Conrad is one of 19 judicial emergencies currently pending, and there is a crucial need to fill these seats.

Looks like next week's SJC Business Meeting will focus on NY's District Court nominees:

Nominations

Paul G. Gardephe to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York

Kiyo A. Matsumoto to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York

Cathy Seibel to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York

Glenn T. Suddaby to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of New York

http://talkradionews.com/2008/06/republicans-democrats-%E2%80%9Cplaying-...

"A group of Republican Senators headed by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) chastised Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) for what they viewed as “playing politics with a judicial nomination. The nomination of Judge Robert Conrad to be on the fourth district circuit court of appeals is currently being held up by Sen. Leahy who has yet to give Judge Conrad a hearing.

The Senate Republicans which included Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), Sen Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah.) all focused their attention on the lack of fairness that they view towards Judge Conrad. Hatch, who has been in the senate 32 years, said that because both Senators Dole and Burr are supporting Judge Conrad that holding a hearing should not even be an issue.

“Judge Conrad has the support of both the senators (from North Carolina) that doesn’t happen all that often.” Hatch added that by the senates judiciary committee not holding a hearing it “denigrates the judicial process.”

A key sticking point that infuriated Republicans was that the hearing has been in limbo for now 338 days, a testament to the strife that is currently on going in the Senate. When asked what she viewed as the reason for the hold up Sen. Dole said that it must have “something to do with politics.”

Judge Robert Conrad was nominated by President Bush 338 days ago to be seated on the North Carolina fourth circuit court of appeals. Conrad has previously been confirmed by the Senate to be a U.S. Attorney in 2001 and has been unanimously rated “well qualified” by the American Bar Association."

http://burr.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&...

"U.S. Senators Richard Burr and Elizabeth Dole today called for the quick confirmation of Judge Robert Conrad of North Carolina. They spoke at a press conference hosted by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Judge Conrad was nominated by President Bush to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on July 17, 2007.

“Bob Conrad is a very qualified nominee with a long history of public service and he has a reputation as a fair and capable judge,” Burr said. “His confirmation has been delayed for over 330 days and it is wrong to hold up this nomination, especially when he has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate twice before. Unfortunately for North Carolina, Judge Conrad is not alone. I urge my colleagues to stop blocking these nominations and give Judge Conrad and Thomas Farr a hearing.”

“Like Judge Conrad, Thomas Farr’s nomination to the federal bench has languished far too long without so much as a hearing,” said Dole. “Nearly 600 days ago, Thomas Farr was nominated to serve as a District Court Judge in the Eastern District of North Carolina. Both of these dedicated public servants are abundantly qualified to serve on the bench, and it’s high time their nominations were given appropriate consideration by the Judiciary Committee.”"

http://hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail...

"Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) joined Senate colleagues and others today in voicing support for Fourth Circuit Court nominee Judge Robert Conrad Jr.

Hatch called on Senate Democrats to get moving in approving President Bush’s judicial nominees. He said moving forward on Conrad’s hearing and confirmation would be a good start.

The Fourth Circuit Court hears appeals from district courts in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and South Carolina.

Sen. Orrin Hatch’s statement on Judge Conrad follows:

I am glad to support this fine nominee and appreciate the chance to be with you today.
This seat on the Fourth Circuit has been vacant since 1994.

The previous President’s nominees to this vacancy did not get a hearing because their home-state Senators did not support them. Thankfully, this confirmation obstacle no longer exists.

Judge Conrad has the strong support of both distinguished Senators from North Carolina.
In fact, he has the strong support of the United States Senate, which unanimously confirmed him to the federal bench just three years ago. He has the strong support of the American Bar Association, which has given him its highest rating.

And as we can see here today, Judge Conrad has strong support far beyond that as well.
But time is running out and the Senate has not made much confirmation progress.
Compared to the previous seven Congresses that included a presidential election year, we are 87 percent finished with our time in session.

But compared to those Congresses, only 32 percent as many appeals court nominees have had a hearing and only 46 percent as many have been confirmed.
That is not enough to fulfill our responsibility to the judiciary or to the American people.
We can begin to catch up by supporting Judge Conrad.

The people of the Fourth Circuit and America need judges of character and integrity who understand how the judiciary properly fits into our system of government.
Judge Conrad deserves a hearing and confirmation so he can bring his experience and fairness to the appeals court."

for the news articles on the press conference. Is the reason for highlighting only Conrad today that he's the only pending nominee who meets the "both state senators approve" test, and therefore is the poster boy for rubbing Leahy's nose in his own rhetoric?

Actually, Matthews of South Carolina has the approval of both his Republican homestate senators, Graham and DeMint. I get the distinct impression, however, that neither are thrilled with him. Basically, as I understand it, Matthews was forced upon them by White House Counsel Fred Fielding, who worked with Matthews in the Reagan White House.

While I realize this is not directly related to the nomination of Federal judges, what happens in Jerusalem next week will be followed very closely by many US leaders who are members in northern Virginia Episcopal churches, some of which have voted to leave the Anglican Communion as it is now constituted. It looks like "GAFCON" will take action to form a group separate from the current Anglican communion. The following is from gafcon.org.

GAFCON book, The Way, The Truth and the Life, will be released on Thursday, 19th June, in Jerusalem. A press conference will be held at the Renaissance Hotel on Thursday, 19th June at 19:00 hours.

The 94-page book is published by Latimer Trust and was prepared by GAFCON Theological Resource Team. It provides the theological and historical foundation for the movement of orthodox Anglicans that is meeting in Jerusalem June 22 – 29. More than 1,000 Anglican leaders from 25 countries, including 280 bishops, are expected to attend the conference.

After outlining the recent history of conflicts within the Anglican Communion, “The Way, the Truth and the Life,” sets out to define authentic Anglicanism, discuss what is at stake in the conflict, and what the future holds for orthodox Anglicans. “Our journey is a witness that the truth of God is accessible. We are convinced that God has made himself known, sufficiently for us to be able to respond to him, and to make truly moral choices between obedience and disobedience.”

The book deals frankly with the crisis facing the Anglican Communion. “We have made enormous efforts since 1997 in seeking to avoid this crisis, but without success. Now we confront a moment of decision. If we fail to act, we risk leading millions of people away from the faith revealed in the Holy Scriptures and also, even more seriously, we face the real possibility of denying our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,” writes the Most. Rev. Peter Akinola, Archbishop of Abuja, Primate of All Nigeria and chairman of the Global Anglican Future Conference.

“The Way, the Truth and the Life,” which is being released digitally as well as handed out in hardcopy to all GAFCON attendees, reaffirms “our Christian faith as it relates to some prime topics: Anglican identity and orthodoxy, the Lordship of Jesus Christ and its implications for personal morality and missions, and the whole issue of authority, Christ’s authority in the church and the authority of the Bible,” writes the Most. Rev. Nicholas D. Okoh, Archbishop of Bendel, Nigeria, and chairman of the Theological Resource Team.

Some new nominees today, and very interesting. Gregory Garre for Solicitor General, and Jeffrey Rosen for DC District Court. Is that Professor Jeffrey Rosen?? And Professor Michael O'Neill was nominated for the DC District Court, instead of Dabney Friedrich, who had been speculated for more than a year.

Nominations Sent to the Senate

Gregory G. Garre, of Maryland, to be Solicitor General of the United States, vice Paul D. Clement, resigned.

Michael O'Neill, of Maryland, to be United States District Judge for the District of Columbia, vice Gladys Kessler, retired.

Jeffrey Adam Rosen, of Virginia, to be United States District Judge for the District of Columbia, vice Thomas F. Hogan, retired.

J. Patrick Rowan, of Maryland, to be an Assistant Attorney General, vice Kenneth L. Wainstein.

Garre and O'Neill are homeruns. O'Neill is of course COA quality, perhaps even SCOTUS quality, as is Garre.

Different Jeffrey Rosen:

"Jeffrey A. Rosen was sworn in as the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Transportation on December 15, 2003.

Before coming to the Department of Transportation, Mr. Rosen was a senior partner in the Washington, D.C. office of the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, L. L. P., where he also served on the firm’s management committee. He is a member of the D.C. Bar, as well as the bars of the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Courts of Appeal for the District of Columbia, Federal, Third, Fourth, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Columbia, Eastern District of Michigan, and Northern District of Illinois.

During his more than 21 years at Kirkland & Ellis, his practice principally involved complex business litigation matters involving contracts, antitrust, RICO, business torts, government enforcement actions and product liability, including consumer and mass tort class actions. In addition, he was previously involved in litigation before federal and state courts in the District of Columbia and more than 20 states, including jury trials, bench evidentiary hearings, arbitrations and appellate arguments. Until joining DOT, he also was an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

Mr. Rosen graduated from Northwestern University, where he received a B.A. with Highest Distinction in economics in 1979. He then enrolled in Harvard Law School and graduated magna cum laude in 1982. Since then, he has been a long-time resident of the Commonwealth of Virginia."

Although they are both quality nominees, their nominations come way too late in the game to be any good. There is no way that Dems are going to confirm any district or circuit nominees to the D.C. Circuit this close to the November election. O'Neill might have an extremely outside chance for confirmation simply because he was Specter's counsel for the SJC and as such is a known quantity to the Dems, but he is also a former Clarence Thomas clerk. The Dems hate Thomas clerks with a passion. That is one of the reasons why they don't want to confirm Steve Matthews of South Carolina. Basically, no Thomas clerks need apply for any federal judgeship so long as the Dems have a say in the process.

Having said this, I still think Bush should nominate a person to every open judgeship before the end of his to term to make sure that his judicial confirmation rate accurately represents the extreme level of Dem obstruction that is present. The Republicans will need such statistics to justify blocking Obama nominees in the 111th Congress.

I wonder if the Dems will confirm O'Neill as a favor to Specter simply as consolation for blocking Pratter. After all, Pratter was really just a front for Carolyn Short, another SJC counsel Specter had in the past.

Bobo - Your predictions get more dour by the day; although I must say you covered your bases pretty well on O'Neil - moving from "DOA" to "exceedingly outside chance" to possible confirmation "as a favor" within the space of three paragraphs.

Rosen and O'Neil (particularly O'Neil) are outstanding nominees, and they can't get confirmed if they don't get nominated in the first place. Confirmations have been moving well in Virginia, perhaps Rosen will benefit from that trend. Also, O'Neil won't have to deal with any pesky blue-slips as a nominee to a DC district court seat. Plus, if the democrats aren't going to move any Circuit Court nominees, that doesn't leave them much choice but to move district court nominees. Of course, they could choose not to move any nominees at all, but I don't think they want to make it that easy for the GOP to make the case that the dems are engaging in wholesale obstruction.

Also, although time is getting short, there is much less targeted obstruction of district court nominees (although they do get caught up in the general slow-down of nominees). Situations like Puryear and Rogan are still the exception at that level of the judicial confirmation wars.

Final point - even if these nominees don't get confirmed, it's important to make the nominations so the statistics properly reflect the degree of democratic obstruction. Every seat should have a high-quality nominee awaiting consideration by the Senate.

To a certain extent, when faced with a new nomination, my comments flow in a stream of consciousness manner as I develop a list of appropriate criteria with which to evaluate the situation . My comments are not as contradictory as they may seem on initial review. The next step after deciding on the necessary factors for my analysis is to prioritize each one to form the bigger picture.

In general, I think Dem obstruction of D.C. Circuit district court nominees will be greater than Dem obstruction of Fourth Circuit district court nominees because the D.C. Circuit is more powerful in terms of the judicial regulation of important government agencies and their policies. For that reason alone, I don't think you can compare O'Neill's confirmation to that of any Virginia judicial nominee.

In addition, I think there are several other factors involving O'Neill that need to be examined. First, as I mentioned before, his nomination comes just before the official date of the Thurmond Rule. That gives the Dems a perfect reason not to process it. Also, in the cases of Agee, G. Conrad and the Virginia district court nominees, the Dems (via Webb) participated in the selection. Did the Dems participate in the selection of either O'Neill or Rosen? If not, expect obstruction. Also, remember the Dems HATE Thomas clerks. You can expect obstruction for that reason as well.

The fourth factor involving specifically O'Neill is his past as Arlen Specter's SJC counsel during the Roberts and Alito hearings. I don't know if that experience sours or sweetens the deal for the Dems. Are they mad at him for helping Specter get two such "controversial, ultraconservative" justices confirmed, or do they like the way that he helped manage their procedural demands during the hearings? I don't know.

As I mentioned before, the one thing that might save O'Neill's nomination is a possible pang of regret on the Dems' part for blocking the confirmations of Pratter and Short.

So, from the Dems' perspective, I see three negatives (circuit nominated to, date of nomination, being a Thomas clerk), one possible neutral (being Specter's SJC counsel) and one possible positive (Dem regret over Pratter/Short) to O'Neill's confirmation. 3-1?-1? leads me to believe that short of some deal, O'Neill will NOT get confirmed.

Because Rosen is less well-known, I think it will be easier for the Dems to bury his nomination among the mass of other outstanding district court nominations than it will be to bury O'Neill's. This does not bode well for Rosen. Who is going to push him to the exclusion of O'Neill?

http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000570.htm

"Arlen Specter's tortured cognitive dissonance over the politically motivated firings of U.S. attorneys may be the by-product of his own essential role in making the scandal possible in the first place. As Dahlia Lithwick detailed in Slate ("Specter Detector"), it was Specter's own chief-of-staff and former Clarence Thomas clerk Michael O'Neill who at the urging of the DOJ surreptitiously inserted the codicil into the revised Patriot Act enabling the Attorney General to name interim U.S. prosecutors without Senate confirmation. Specter deflected charges of his own culpability by claiming cluelessness; the Patriot Act proviso significantly augmenting executive power appeared without his knowledge:

"I then contacted my very able chief counsel, Michael O'Neill, to find out exactly what had happened. And Mr. O'Neill advised me that the requested change had come from the Department of Justice, that it had been handled by Brett Tolman, who is now the U.S. attorney for Utah, and that the change had been requested by the Department of Justice because there had been difficulty with the replacement of a U.S. attorney in South Dakota...I did not slip it in and I do not slip things in. That is not my practice. If there is some item which I have any idea is controversial I tell everybody about it."
The change to the Patriot Act was controversial to be sure, the necessary and sufficient condition enabling Alberto Gonzales to undertake his purge of Bush non-loyalists from the ranks of the U.S. attorneys. Mercifully, Specter took the first baby step towards redressing his wrong by joining 93 of his colleagues in stripping the AG's new powers from the Act."

Bobo: Agree that the new DC District nominee and Keisler are dead nominations. I've thought Keisler was "dead" since November 2006, desite rumors of a possible deal last year.

But after Glen Conrad is probably confirmed in July, I think there may be one last Bush CCA confirmation: Pratter (with Short of course included in the package). I think Dems will agree to this concession to Specter in a compromise including the Senate GOP's final surrender on Keisler, R. Conrad, and Matthews. And don't worry about Casey's blue slip. Senate pipsqueak Casey Jr. is just a tool here, and he will return his blue slip in about 5 minutes when ordered to by Reid and Leahy.

http://www.slate.com/id/2161260?nav=ais

"... it now seems that either the DOJ snookered O'Neill, O'Neill snookered Specter, or Specter snookered his colleagues. But any way you slice it, the executive seems to have encroached on congressional turf in order to expand executive turf."

http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2008/06/hill-veteran-na.html

"Late-session nominations like O'Neill's have a slim-to-none chance of making it through the nomination process especially in a presidential election year, but his ties to Specter probably give him a better slim chance than others."

NOTE; Mauro's "slim-to-none chance of making it through" phraseology strikes me as similar to my "DOA" statement. In addition, Mauro's "ties to Specter probably give him a better slim chance than others" appears to be mean the same as my, "extremely outside chance for confirmation simply because he was Specter's counsel for the SJC."

Judge Michael Anello, who the President nominated to the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, received his ABA rating of WQ today.

http://www.abanet.org/scfedjud/ratings/ratings110.pdf

Judge Glen Conrad is next on the ABA's list.

http://afjjusticewatch.blogspot.com/2008/06/isnt-it-ironic.html

"You know how the word “irony” is so hard for some people to define? Well, if the dictionary’s meaning has left you unsatisfied, look no further than the Concerned Women for America’s (CWA) press conference on Judge Robert Conrad’s nomination to the Fourth Circuit. Yesterday afternoon, in a nearly empty room in the Senate’s Dirksen Building, Judge Conrad’s cronies were trotted out one by one to discuss his merits. But despite CWA’s sponsorship, the group barely had a presence; in fact, there were hardly any women in the room at all.

Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) added to the irony; the issues they pressed upon so relentlessly had little to do with Judge Conrad’s legal viewpoints. Apparently they don’t see any need to discuss the legal views of a potential federal appeals court judge. But, thanks to Senator Sessions, we now know what a gifted point guard Judge Conrad was for the Clemson basketball team. Too bad his court vision nowadays leaves something to be desired.

Judge Conrad’s record on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina is troubling to say the least. Of the 12 employment discrimination cases he presided over (10 on the district court and two sitting by designation on the Fourth Circuit), he either wrote or joined summary judgment opinions in 11 of them, effectively taking the jury out of the case and preventing the plaintiff from receiving a fair shake. When Conrad was on the Fourth Circuit, he took part in an environmental decision contradicting a district court finding that the Army Corps of Engineers had violated the Clean Water Act. It was a decision that, according to his dissenting colleague, Judge King, “undermine[d] the CWA’s primary purpose of protecting the environment.”

Of course, our favorite performance of the day was Curt Levey’s. We weren’t too surprised when Mr. Levey, a spokesman for the Committee for Justice, walked out and started to take part in some good, old-fashioned ad hominem attacks.

Mr. Levey declared AFJ pro-polygamy and biased against Southern white males. Why go with the facts when you can fall back on tired old talking points designed to appeal to the right-wing base?

Mr. Levey’s reading of AFJ’s reports opposing the nomination of Judge Conrad is as twisted as his reading of the Constitution. He said that AFJ and other groups have accused Judge Conrad of being anti-Catholic. While it’s sad that this sort of distortion even has to be dignified with a response, AFJ does not believe Judge Conrad to be anti-Catholic. We do, however, know he called Dead Man Walking author Sister Helen Prejean a “church-hating nun,” and that such vitriolic pronouncements do not speak well of his respect for views other than his own.

As much as Mr. Levey and the rest of the pro-Conrad bunch cry foul, this press conference signified just how much the Republicans relish in politicizing the process. Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) observed that “No individual should have their lives on hold for 338 days like Bob Conrad.” His colleagues at the podium didn’t seem to share that stance during the Clinton administration. Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), along with Senators Sessions and Specter, didn’t take part in any press conferences decrying the 542 days Kathleen McCree’s nomination languished, or the 1,532—yes, 1,532—days endured by Helene White.

Senators Specter and Sessions should easily remember Judge White: they voted against her renewed nomination in committee just last week. Why vote against Helene White? Because, unlike Judge Conrad, she isn’t one of their own—an ultraconservative bent on pursuing an ideological agenda from the bench. Senate Republicans have been talking a lot lately about judicial emergencies and swift confirmations, but their actions belie their words. For all of their rhetoric, Senate Republicans have no interest in reducing the federal judiciary’s vacancy rate—their only concern is ensuring a complete conservative takeover of the federal bench.

A little too ironic, don’t you think?"

That's not irony. They need a better dictionary.

It's actually outright hypocrisy on the GOP senators' part, and not something so nuanced as irony. One can't at all, of course, accuse Burr and Dole, of this hypocrisy, since they weren't in the Senate during the Clinton administration. But Hatch, Specter and Sessions (and McConnell) all were, and surely they must vividly remember slow-walking long-delayed (and ultimately scuttled) Clinton COA nominees like White, Lewis, James Lyons, Barry Goode, Rich Leonard, Jorge Rangel, Elena Kagan and Allen Snyder. To think that they could hold up a batch of Democratic COA nominees and never get any payback when the Dems retook the Senate is truly idiotic.

No matter how much Specter and Sessions whine about Conrad, they simply don't occupy any moral high ground on this issue. Specter and Sessions are better off just sucking it up until they again get control of both the White House and the Senate one day. It's pretty clear that for either party to move any meaningful number of COA nominees through in the future, that party is going to have to control both the White House *and* the Senate.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/under-fire-from-conservatives-mcconn...

"McConnell has vowed repeatedly over the past year and a half to bring the Senate to a halt to force faster action on judges. But conservative activists say that little has happened aside from the flare-up over the climate bill.

“For too long we kept on hearing from McConnell and Specter, ‘Something’s coming, something’s coming,’ ” said McClusky, in reference to Senate Judiciary Committee senior Republican Arlen Specter (Pa.). “These procedural moves don’t move the issue forward. To the Democrats, it’s like gnats.”

Manuel Miranda, chairman of the Third Branch Conference, an association of 150 conservative and libertarian leaders from around the country, called the Republican pushback on judges “pitiful.”

“That e-mail and my own sense tells me that we need to do more than encourage the Republicans to take on the pitiful procedural tactics they’ve taken so far,” he said, in reference to the e-mail alert from the American Center for Law & Justice.

Miranda, who handled judicial nominees as an aide to former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), said McConnell’s tactics have had little effect.

“It shows they’re trying to throw red meat at the base to meet the promise that McConnell made early in the year that he would take forceful action, but that’s not what he’s doing,” said Miranda of Senate Republicans. “They need to go down en masse to the floor because the Democrats have broken their promises and outmaneuvered them at every turn.”

Democrats promised to confirm three circuit court nominees by the Memorial Day recess but only approved one, enraging many conservatives.

McConnell retaliated by holding up the first bill the Senate considered when it returned from the break: the climate change legislation.

The Judiciary Committee has confirmed two more nominees, but one, 6th Circuit Court selection Helene White, is opposed by many Republicans.

Connie Mackey, the senior vice president of FRC Action, the legislative action arm of the Family Research Council, supported Miranda’s criticism.

“I think he’s right,” she said. “We took time for them to read a bunch of bills and nothing happened and we’re no place.”"

But when does the bad blood get put behind us? When does one side finally grow up and act like adults? When does the Senate actually function as it should?

Yes, the Republicans treated some of Clinton's very liberal nominees improperly. We know this. This was, in some sense, retaliation for decades of Democrat disdain and abuse of Republicans during 40 years of mostly Democrat control of Congress - not only regarding judicial nominations (Haynesworth, Carswell, Bork, Thomas, and many lower court nominees, particularly under Reagan), but also a whole host of legislative issues. If we're going to play tit-for-tat, the Republicans would likely win the argument over who had the stronger grounds for retaliating against past obstruction and abuse.

But this is a childish, counterproductive game to play. It would be nice if the two sides could get over it. And I would argue the Republicans mostly did by the end of Clinton's term, confirming numerous severely liberal nominees: Paez, Berzon, Barkett, and Fletcher come to mind, among many others. Why didn't the Democrats simply take their lumps and move on, as many Republicans did for so many years?

Because they're little children posing as adults - they're certainly not leaders. Vindictive, spiteful, and prone to outbursts when they don't get their way. So, when Bush won a very close presidential race, the liberal babies of the Senate decided to go on the attack in an unprecedented manner regarding judicial nominations. Since 2001, they have scuttled numerous nominations of supremely qualified nominees, in pay back for a deleterious process they had started in the first place. Can it be reasonably argued that a Peter Keisler or Miguel Estrada aren't qualified to be COA judges? Only if you're a liberal, where reason does not apply.

So, StayUpLate, you might want to rethink your charge of hypocrisy, given the Democrats' less than stellar history in this mess. If the Democrats truly wanted to usher in a new type of politics, this would have ended long ago. But they don't, and so it hasn't.

And since I too can act like a child sometimes, I hope the Republicans return the favor if Osama Obama somehow wins the presidency.

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/32732.html

"Peter Keisler was nominated to the US Court of Appeals for the Columbia Circuit 630 days ago. Same ABA recommendation. Mr. Keisler has argued before the Supreme Court, and was a member of the Department of Justice, and responsible for their largest litigating division.

Some judges with the same credentials and waiting times include Richard Honaker, Charles Pickering, and Leslie Southwick. The wait was too long, and they are now in different endeavors. It seems that appointed nominees to the judiciary were made a disposable political tool because they may be pro-life. They requested a simple up-and-down vote. Not allowed by Leahy.

Despite a mostly Democrat senate, Leahy knows these judges would likely be voted in anyway. He believes it is important for Democrats to confirm the fewest judges until the leadership is supposedly changed this November."

http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/jun/20/burr-dole-pushing-for-hea...

"North Carolina's two Republican senators pressured Democratic leaders yesterday to schedule a confirmation hearing for a conservative North Carolina judge nominated for the federal bench almost a year ago.

Judge Robert J. Conrad was nominated by President Bush in July to fill one of four open slots on a federal appeals court that covers the Carolinas, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland."

"Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond law school, said that the dispute delaying Conrad's confirmation is far bigger than one judge.

"We're just at the end of a long series of political paybacks on the 4th Circuit that go back to the Clinton administration, or even earlier," he said. "There's plenty of blame to go around.""

"People for the American Way, a progressive legal-advocacy group that opposes Conrad, wrote in an April letter to Leahy that although Conrad has been confirmed to a lower federal court, it is important that he not be promoted.

"The court of appeals is literally the court of last resort for most Americans, given that the Supreme Court hears so few cases," group president Kathryn Kolbert wrote. "The stakes are thus far higher when an appellate nomination is considered."

Burr said in an interview that he believes that Leahy is acquiescing to groups such as Kolbert's.

"Clearly, these outside groups have told Sen. Leahy, ‘Don't do this,'" he said.

Tobias said he expects only one 4th Circuit nominee to get a confirmation hearing before the end of the year. That nominee, Judge Glen E. Conrad of Roanoke, Va., is backed by Virginia Sens. John Warner, a Republican, and Jim Webb, a Democrat."

http://www.charlotte.com/local/story/678059.html

"The Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said his party is following the GOP's lead.

“Among the reasons that Republican complaints about the 4th Circuit ring hollow is that the emergency vacancy on the 4th Circuit from North Carolina exists only because the Republican Senate majority refused to consider any of President Clinton's nominees to fill that vacancy,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt."

http://brownpelicanla.com/index.php/all/2008/06/20/sen_leahy_stalls_on_j...

Catholic League president Bill Donohue supports Conrad:

“On May 21, I wrote to Sen. Leahy imploring him to schedule a vote on the merits of Judge Conrad’s qualifications for a seat on the Fourth Circuit. No one from his staff has replied.

“My reason for writing has to do with the entirely spurious accusation against Judge Conrad that he is anti-Catholic. It is not anti-Catholic for a Catholic, such as Judge Conrad, to merely criticize another Catholic. His criticism of Sister Helen Prejean in 1999 was hardly a bigoted attack—it was an opinion, fairly expressed, about her depiction of the clergy. We at the Catholic League have long distinguished between disagreement and disparagement about matters Catholic; only the latter is a problem. Believe me, if we thought that Judge Conrad had crossed the line, we would have said so long ago. But he has not.

“Sen. Leahy should be particularly careful when he buys into the charge that Judge Conrad is anti-Catholic. Just last year when he was asked to comment on Pope Benedict XVI’s criticism of Brazilian Catholic pro-abortion politicians, the Catholic Democrat said, ‘I’ve always thought also that those bishops and archbishops who for decades hid pederasts and are now being protected by the Vatican should be indicted.’

“This is not only an odd segue to the issue Sen. Leahy was asked to address, it reveals an ugly animus. Yet I hasten to add that the Catholic League did not charge Sen. Leahy with being anti-Catholic for making this untoward remark. Ergo, he should apply our standard to Judge Conrad. It’s time to give Judge Conrad the hearing he deserves.”

Bobo - thanks for all of your informative points; I do tend to agree with you that the prospects for confirmation of the recent nominees are not great. Still, here's one more thought to throw into the mix. There has been quite a bit of discussion about using the number of Circuit Court nominees confirmed in the final year of Clinton's presidency as a benchmark for confirmations this year. The point has been made that if the Senate Democrats don't equal that number of confirmations (or at least get close to it) then the GOP will have a green light to obstruct nominations from President Obama next year. I think this logic would apply with equal force at the district court level, where the disparity in confirmations is even more striking. In 2000, the GOP-lead Senate confirmed 31 of President Clinton's district court nominees. So far this year, the Senate has only confirmed 7 of President's Bush's district court nominees. Assuming that the four NY district court nominees go through, other nominees who have had hearings and appear likely to be confirmed are Murphy (MI-E), Novak (VA-E), Lawrence (IN-S), and (perhaps) Snow (AZ). That would get the total to 15 district court confirmations, still less than half the number of Clinton district court nominees confirmed. I don't think the dems will want to give the GOP such a good talking point on the issue, so I expect they will look around and try to confirm a few more nominees. But they won't have a lot to choose from - they are already committed to oppose Puryear, Rogan, Honaker and Almond. No other nominees have even had a hearing. Perhaps Waddoups and Anello will go through. Still, the numbers don't add up. That's why I see a sliver of an opportunity for Rosen and O'Neil; they may be needed by the dems to round out the confirmation totals. Here's hoping, anyway.

"But when does the bad blood get put behind us? When does one side finally grow up and act like adults? When does the Senate actually function as it should?"

I could not agree more. It is ridiculous that the Dems take such stances and will not act on these judges. However, the rest of your argument does not follow the rational and objective stance of your first paragraph.

The rest of your argument is essentially: "but they started it, so they need to be the ones to grow up. If they dont grow up, neither should we."

Am I the only one that sees the argument you put forth is not about "growing up" at all? Its simply about getting your way. Until we stop taking such immature stances, we have no right to expect (hope?) the other side wont do the same.

Didn't Specter propose a fixed schedule on hearings and votes for different types of nominees? That would seem to be the answer. I'm sure the Dems will consider it if Obama wins in November.
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Obama's guiding principle: "I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks."