Legal News

On Judges, Has Obama Missed A Golden Opportunity?

By Ashby Jones

Democrats like to blame their problems on Republicans; Republicans like to blame their own on Democrats. That’s the way it has been, and that’s the way it shall be — now, next year, and probably evermore.

But if the Democrats fail to reshape the judiciary, as is largely the prerogative when the White House changes hands, they’ll likely only be able to funnel so much of the blame on congressional Republicans. At least that’s the point made in this LAT story out Monday.

According to the story, by LAT reporter James Oliphant, President Obama’s White House sent out far fewer judicial nominees that did President George W. Bush during his first year. Bush, reports Olphant, “announced 11 nominees for federal appeals courts in the fourth month of his tenure. Obama didn’t nominate his 11th appeals court judge until November, his 10th month in office.”

“It’s just a missed opportunity,” Geoffrey Stone, a professor at the University of Chicago who has known Obama since he lectured at the school, told the LAT. “I don’t know how committed he is to it.”

The White House doesn’t agree with the criticisms. “The president has moved swiftly to fill vacancies considered to be judicial emergencies, and the pace of nominations overall has significantly increased in the new year,” Ben LaBolt, a White House spokesman, told the LAT. “When brought to a floor vote, the president’s nominees have passed with strong bipartisan support.”

Dems partly point fingers at the GOP over the pace of confirmations. To date, according to the LAT story, only 17 of the 52 Obama administration nominees have been confirmed by the Senate.

Democrats argue that the GOP leadership is requiring burdensome cloture votes on judges that are unopposed.

Call Republicans obstructionists, however, and they get defensive, arguing that Democrats did plenty to try to block Bush nominations. Ask Dems about the Bush years, and they’ll refer to tactics taken up by Republicans under Clinton. And on and on — all the way back, it seems, to the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Robert Bork in 1987.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 15, 2010 (boomark / email).