Tag: judicial nominees
Posted on Thu May 15, 2008 at 04:56:44 PM EST
Tags: judicial nominees (all tags)
The Senate Judiciary Committee today approved a bill that would create dozens of new federal judgeships.
The effective date of the bill is Jan. 20, 2009, which means we will have a new President. These are lifetime positions and the President makes the nominations.
The independence of our federal judiciary is one of the most important reasons we need a Democrat to be elected President. After 8 years of the appointment of conservative judges, the pendulum needs to swing back.
This is just another reason why when all is said and done with the presidential nomination, Democrats need to quickly come together to ensure that the party's candidate wins in November.
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Posted on Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 11:17:20 AM EST
Tags: judicial nominees (all tags)
People for the American Way warns that Republicans are bringing pressure on Senators to confirm President Bush's remaining judicial nominees. It has written this letter(pdf) to Sen. Patrick Leahy, Chair of the Judiciary Committee, suggesting the "Thurmond Rule" be invoked. From the letter:
There is no justification for the Judiciary Committee to accede to demands that it speed up the processing of controversial nominees, particularly at this point in a presidential election year. To the contrary, we believe the time has come for the Committee to invoke the Senate’s longstanding practice, popularly known as “the Thurmond Rule,” of processing only non-controversial judicial nominees during a significant portion of the year leading up to a presidential election. While there has never been a precise date upon which the Thurmond Rule is deemed to take effect, there is ample basis for the Committee to invoke that Rule now.
During much of President Clinton’s Administration, Republican leaders in the Senate blocked the President’s efforts to fill judicial vacancies, particularly on the Courts of Appeals, stranding 60 judicial nominees at the end of the Clinton presidency.2 Through such tactics as secret holds and refusals to schedule hearings or votes, Senate Republicans held judicial vacancies open literally for years in the hope that a Republican would be elected President.
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