Hatch Schedules Hearings for Estrada and Two Rejected Judicial Nominees
People For the American Way today joined the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund in opposing the confirmation of Miguel A. Estrada to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Senate Judiciary Committee Orrin Hatch has called for a vote on Estrada's nomination on Thursday, January 30.People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas rejected suggestions
that Estrada's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on September 26, 2002 had
cleared the way for his confirmation."At his confirmation hearing, Mr. Estrada stubbornly refused to answer many
important questions from Senators concerning his jurisprudential views and
legal philosophy," said Neas. "There is too much at stake to give someone a
powerful a lifetime seat on the federal appeals court without understanding
how he will approach fundamental legal and constitutional questions."Neas said it was outrageous that on the same day Sen. Hatch announced that
"Sen. Hatch is intent on pushing through a nominee like Miguel Estrada, who
there would be a Judiciary Committee vote on Estrada's nomination next week,
he also announced that he would hold additional hearings on appellate court
nominees Charles Pickering and Priscilla Owen, who were rejected by the
Committee last year after in-depth public hearings - two of them in
Pickering's case.
revealed as little as possible about his approach to judging," said Neas.
"Yet at the same time, he plans to expend more of the Committee's time and
energy on nominees whose records were examined exhaustively at public
hearings and whose nominations were rejected."
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