MediaMatters: Fox Echos Repub Fallacy Judge Is 1st Top-Rated To Be Blocked

[Hissyspit]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200505100002

Garrett echoed Republican claim that Judge Owen is first top-rated judge to be blocked; she's not
- N.C.

Fox News general assignment correspondent Major Garrett quoted Republicans who asserted that Texas Supreme Court justice Priscilla Owen, nominated by President Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, is the first judicial nominee to be filibustered who received a unanimous well-qualified ("WQ") rating from the American Bar Association (ABA). But Garrett failed to note that blocking WQ-rated judicial nominees is hardly new.

Republicans blocked 10 of President Clinton's appeals court nominees who received unanimous WQs. Denied even hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, these nominations* never left the committee for full Senate consideration.

Clinton nominees with highest ABA ratings denied Senate Judiciary Committee hearings:

106th Congress

H. Alston Johnson (5th Circuit)
James Duffy (9th Circuit)
Kathleen McCree-Lewis (6th Circuit)
Enrique Moreno (5th Circuit)
James Lyons (10th Circuit)
Robert Cindrich (3rd Circuit)
Stephen Orlofsky (3rd Circuit)
Andre Davis (4th Circuit)
J. Rich Leonard (4th Circuit)

105th Congress

James Beaty (4th Circuit)

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