Federal Judiciary

GOP Senators React as Leahy Guts Judges Deal

By Curt Levey

All nine Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have joined the chorus calling on Sens. Pat Leahy and Harry Reid to show good faith in implementing their agreement with Minority Leader McConnell to confirm three circuit court nominees by Memorial Day. In their letter yesterday , the Republican senators remind Judiciary Chairman Leahy that he has not responded to their previous letters about 4th Circuit nominees Bob Conrad and Steve Matthews, and address the necessity of including both nominees and DC Circuit nominee Peter Keisler in the Memorial Day deal:

[W]e believe, that as a matter of fairness, those promised three should include Judge Conrad, Mr. Matthews, and Mr. Keisler. Failing to include those three is unfair both to these nominees, who have been pending in Committee for over 270, 220, and 660 days respectively, but also to the litigants in the Fourth Circuit who are shackled with an appellate court that is one-third vacant. Further, we are concerned that more than a week after the Majority Leader?s commitment, a hearing for only one circuit nominee, Justice Steven Agee of Virginia, has been scheduled. ? ?Doing everything [you] can? surely means holding a hearing for Judge Conrad and Mr. Matthews, and in Mr. Keisler?s case, a Committee vote.

The new letter to Sen. Leahy was spurred, in part, by his announcement yesterday of a hearing for Fourth Circuit nominee Agee, who was nominated just last month and received his required American Bar Association rating just this week. That stands in stark contrast to the months and years of delay for Keisler, Conrad, and Matthews. By moving Agee ahead of other circuit nominees, Leahy deepened the widespread suspicion that he and Reid will try to evade good faith implementation of the Memorial Day deal by claiming credit for circuit court nominees that were already part of other deals with Democrats. Agee and Sixth Circuit nominees Helene White and Ray Kethledge fall in that category.

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Full post as published by ConfirmThem on April 24, 2008 (boomark / email).