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| How to Break the Logjam in Judicial Nominations |
| 2004-09-04 |
| This is a vexing problem for the right. Democrats in the drive to retain socialists in judgeships want also to stop conservtaive judge from taking the bench. How to solve this problem? Oh, and EFL... Senate Republicans, however, are not exactly powerless, and for more than a year now the central question regarding the confirmation of judges has been whether they would attempt a rule change that would facilitate a simple majority vote on judicial nominees. Not all of them are eager to sign onto that project, and yet it is clear that there is not even a chance of effecting such a rule change unless just about every Republican is willing to get behind the effort. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island are the holdouts. Arlen Specter may be one, too. They've not said much publicly about the issue, yet if the Republican leadership tries to press for a rule change this fall, as one aide to a GOP Senator told me is likely, they'll be the Senators to watch. Gray, a veteran of the judges' wars who served as White House Counsel to "41," as he typically refers to George W. Bush's father, said during the debate here at the Marriott, which covered well-trodden terrain, that Republican Senators have nothing less than a "duty" to respond to the Democrats' unprecedented filibustering by effecting the rules change. Do Collins, Snowe, Chaffee, and Specter agree with that assessment, or not? Right now, that's the most important question you can put to Senate Republicans about the judges' wars. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #1 A much better solution has been proposed over at NRO. All Bush has to do is fill every vacancy with a recess appointment of a hard core Republican attorney. Given the choice of confirming professional jurists or letting cases get decided by partisan part-timers, well, do the math. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2004-09-04 11:06:58 AM |