Litigation

Holder: Time to Address ?Crisis in our Courts?

By Peter Hardin

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has delivered an urgent appeal from the Obama administration for the U.S. Senate to end a “crisis in our courts” created by judicial vacancies and vote to confirm nominees who have gained majority support.

In a Washington Post op-ed, Holder points to 23 judicial nominees awaiting votes in the final days of this year’s Senate calendar, with 16 of them having won unanimous bipartisan approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee. He calls the confirmation process “twisted in knots” and protests that the long-delayed nominees have support from home-state senators and drew “little or no opposition” in committee. He warns that the federal judiciary, with 103 vacancies, is severely stressed:

“The federal judicial system that has been a rightful source of pride for the United States — the system on which we all depend for a prompt and fair hearing of our cases when we need to call on the law — is stressed to the breaking point.”

The attorney general quotes Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy as recently cautioning that if important judgeships are left vacant, the “rule of law is imperiled.” Holder concludes by calling on Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell to live up to a statement he made in 2005 calling for up-or-down votes on judicial nominees with majority Senate support:

“I agree. It’s time to address the crisis in our courts. It’s time to confirm these judges.”

Gavel Grab has written a good deal in recent weeks about the judicial backlog and politically polarized Senate, and you can click here to learn more.

Meanwhile, a new report by Visiting Fellow Russell Wheeler of the Brookings Institution offers an analysis of recent judicial nominations, an examination of the political crossfire over Obama’s record and a few of Wheeler’s own insights. Among Wheeler’s conclusions:

• “Judicial vacancies have proliferated more under Obama than [President George W.] Bush.
• “Obama circuit nominees (but not district nominees) have gotten more hearings, more quickly than did Bush nominees.
• “Obama pre-May 26 circuit nominees have slightly higher confirmation rates that Bush circuit nominees, but the much larger number of district nominees have fared worse.
• “What accounts for this downturn in the percentage of district confirmations?…The more plausible explanation is that political polarization is claiming one more of the unwritten rules that have traditionally sustained the federal judiciary?routine, bi-partisan approval of professionally competent district nominees whom both home-state senators endorse.”

Full post as published by The Gavel on September 28, 2010 (boomark / email).