http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/29/obama-judicial-nominees_n_3156050.html
Obama’s Judicial Nominees Blocked On All Sides By Senate Republicans
By Jennifer Bendery
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WASHINGTON — It’s bad enough that there are
82 vacant federal judge slots around the country, a level so high that many observers have deemed it a crisis situation.
But perhaps even more startling is the fact that of those
82 vacant slots, 61 of them don’t even have a nominee.
On its face, the absence of nominees would appear to be a sign that President Barack Obama is slacking. After all, he is responsible for nominating judges, and he did put forward fewer nominees at the end of his first term than his two predecessors. But a closer look at data on judicial nominees, and conversations with people involved in the nomination process, reveals the bigger problem is
Republican senators quietly refusing to recommend potential judges in the first place.
The process for moving judicial nominees is simple enough. A president takes the lead on circuit court nominees, while, per longstanding tradition, a senator kickstarts the process for district court nominees, which make up the bulk of the federal court system.
Senators make recommendations from their home states, and the president works with them to get at least some of the nominees confirmed — the idea being that senators, regardless of party, are motivated to advocate for nominees from their states. The White House may look at other nominees on its own, but typically won’t move forward without input from the corresponding senators. Once a nominee is submitted to the Senate, he or she receives a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. If approved, the nomination heads to the Senate floor for a full vote.
It’s hardly news that
the judicial nomination process is gummed up. Democrats regularly blast Republicans for blocking Obama’s nominees after they clear the
Senate Judiciary Committee with broad support, making them wait an average of 116 days for a confirmation vote. That’s three times longer than the average wait for President George W. Bush’s nominees. But these obstacles come at the end of the nomination process. It’s now clear that there’s a serious problem at the beginning, too.
It turns out that since Obama took office, senators from some states — particularly those represented by two Republicans — have simply refused to make recommendations, according to data recently published by the Alliance for Justice, a left-leaning association of more than 100 organizations focused on the federal judiciary.
Take Kansas, for example. The state is represented by
Republican Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran, neither of whom has put forward nominees for a district court slot there that has been vacant for 1,246 days. Their inaction hasn’t gone unnoticed — both senators have taken heat for not participating in the nomination process.
Or look at Texas, where Republican Sens.
John Cornyn and Ted Cruz have not moved to fill seven vacant judicial slots, two of which have been vacant for 1,733 and 1,034 days, respectively, without a nominee. At least one Texas paper ran a piece suggesting Cornyn and former Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison were holding off on making judicial recommendations because they were hopeful Mitt Romney would become president in 2012.
There are four vacant judicial slots in Arizona, one of which has been vacant for 1,132 days. Neither of the state’s Republican senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, have put forward a nominee for any those spots.
In total,
25 of the 61 vacancies without nominees are in states with two Republican senators, and another 14 are in states with one Republican senator and one Democratic senator. Seventeen are in states with two Democratic senators, and the remaining five are in other districts. That means many of the vacancies without nominees can be traced back to Senate Republicans who just aren’t participating in the process — a reality that flies in the face of Republicans’ chief complaint that Obama isn’t putting forward enough judicial nominees.
“It’s disingenuous at best for Republicans to complain about the number of judicial vacancies without nominees when Republicans themselves are responsible for the majority of those vacancies,” said Michelle Schwartz, director of Justice Programs for Alliance for Justice. “Nearly two-thirds of the vacancies without nominees are in states with at least one Republican senator, most of whom have consistently refused to work with the White House in good faith to identify qualified candidates.”
To be sure, there are states with long-vacant judgeships that are represented by two Democratic senators. But according to Alliance for Justice data, those instances are less frequent, the number of days those slots have been vacant is significantly lower and, in most cases, those senators have put forward nominees. In California, for example, which is represented by Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, one judicial slot has been vacant for 575 days. But the senators have made a recommendation, and the White House is currently working with them to fill the judgeship.
Thirty-six of the current vacancies are considered “judicial emergencies.” At the circuit courts, that means that because of the vacancies, the number of cases per panel of judges exceeds 700, or stays between 500 and 700 for more than 18 months. In district courts, it means the number of cases per individual judge is more than 600, or between 430 and 600 for more than 18 months. The more overloaded judges are, the more delayed the process of moving civil and criminal matters through the justice system.
