Obama Slower Than Bush to Confirm Judges

[usregimechange]

More than 10 months into President Obama's term in office, he and the Democratic-controlled Senate have been notably slow to confirm judges to the nation's courts, particularly when compared with recent administrations. To date, the president has made some 26 lower court nominations, yet only four have been confirmed by the Senate.

On the campaign trail, Obama promised an armistice in the perennial fights over federal judges. Those nomination skirmishes, while successful at arousing the political extremes of both parties, left the judicial branch of government badly understaffed. But the deliberate pace of the Obama administration so far hasn't helped either. Obama has lagged far behind his predecessor when it comes to even nominating judges for vacant positions. By this point in his first term, George W. Bush already had nominated 95 judicial candidates. The slow pace, combined with obstructive tactics by Senate Republicans and inaction from Senate Democrats, has left nearly 100 judgeships vacant, about 10 percent of the seats on the appeals and district courts.

Both Republicans and Democrats note that the process of replacing retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter with Sonia Sotomayor consumed much of the time of both the Senate Judiciary Committee, which confirms federal judges, and White House vetters. But one review of the pending nominations asserts that the bottleneck isn't occurring in the Judiciary Committee. Instead, according to a study by Russell Wheeler of the Brookings Institution, the delays actually come in getting a vote from the full Senate. On average, the report says, Obama nominees have waited more than 130 days between the committee vote and a vote on the Senate floor. "The Republicans are spoiling for a fight on this issue, hoping that they can use it in the next election," says Doug Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center.

Democrats blame the GOP for obstructing the nominations just ahead of the votes by demanding hours of debate time or using anonymous "holds," which effectively halt the progress of a nomination.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2009/11/06/obama-slower-than-bush-to-confirm-justices.html


Title should read: Senate Slow as hell to Confirm Judges

[Hawkeye-X]

1. It should read Idiotic Obstructing Rethuglicans placing illegal holds on highly qualified judges

unlike their idiotic judicial Chimp choices in the last 8 years.

Hawkeye-X

[usregimechange]

2. Well said.