FOR OBAMA’S JUDGES, IT’S ALREADY LATE

[xchrom]

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/03/federal-court-barack-obama-halligan-nomination.html



On the same day as Rand Paul’s celebrated filibuster against drone strikes last week, the Senate engaged in a less noticed but more typical form of delay and obstruction. A majority of the Senate voted to bring up the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, but forty-one Republican Senators voted to prevent her from receiving consideration. This is the modern version of the filibuster, far more common than Paul’s thirteen-hour speech. Without sixty votes, it’s now virtually impossible to accomplish anything in the contemporary United States Senate.

This senatorial entropy has taken an enormous toll on President Obama’s judicial appointments. This was the second time that Halligan received majority support, but, because she never passed the threshold of sixty, her nomination now appears doomed. And so, in the fifth year of his Presidency, Obama has failed to place even a single judge on the D.C. Circuit, considered the second most important court in the nation, as it deals with cases of national importance. (Its judges—like John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg—also often wind up on the Supreme Court.) The D.C. Circuit now has four vacancies out of eleven seats.

During the last Bush Administration, Republican Senators grew so frustrated with what they called Democratic obstruction of judicial nominees that they threatened to change Senate rules to limit filibusters on judges. In 2005, the bipartisan “Gang of Fourteen” Senators announced a truce. Democrats agreed to allow votes on Bush’s nominees in “all but extraordinary circumstances,” and they kept to the deal. Bush’s second-term appointees (including two to the Supreme Court) proceeded without obstruction. At least technically, the Gang of Fourteen compromise is still in effect. But Republicans have essentially ignored it—as the Halligan filibuster demonstrated.

Halligan is impeccably qualified to be a judge—she’s a career government lawyer from New York—and she enjoyed broad support among members of both parties in the legal community. Opposition to her focused almost completely on a single brief she wrote for her boss, then-New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo had sought to make gun manufacturers legally responsible for some of the violence in New York, a position that the National Rifle Association opposed. The N.R.A. punished Halligan for doing her job for New York, and the Senate Republicans followed.


Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/03/federal-court-barack-obama-halligan-nomination.html#ixzz2NK4h2aAM

[CincyDem]

1. This is what comes from an inability to leverage power.

This seems to be just one more example of how we, democrats, fail to use power when it is on our side.

By comparison, is seems like republicants can rule the world (and totally screw it up) and redefine the entire court system with a lame-brain president that couldn't find his a$$ with both hands and 51 Senate seats ('03-'05) or even 50 ('01-'03).

Of all the issues we face, this is the one that pains me the most as these judge appointments are what seals a president's legacy, their lasting ability to influence the direction of the country. Everything else PBO seems to be accomplishing can disappear in the first two years of a republicant presidency but judges - they're here to stay. And the repubs know it.

I will never regret voting for PBO 2x but I fear I will often be saddened by what was left on the table as he and other democratic leaders pursued compromise and "respect for the institution" rather than exerting the full power of their offices to create sustainable change.

I've seen the list of accomplishments but somebody, help me out here...help me see the accomplishments that are sustainable, those that can't be reversed with the stroke of a republicant pen in the future.

[rhett o rick]

2. Why are the Democrats taking this laying down? Harry said he had this handled.

If the REpukes ever get back in power, you can bet your bippy they will limit filibusters.

Come on Harry, take a stand.