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Tuesday morning, a handful of reporters made their way past the
scene-of-the-crime tape closing off sections of the Hart Senate
Office Building's first floor to meet with Sen. Orrin Hatch about
what would be the biggest fight in town, if not for the high-stakes
battle going on elsewhere. The statistics Sen. Hatch shared about
judicial confirmations make a convincing case that Judiciary Chairman
Patrick Leahy is engaging in an unprecedented stall that Hatch cites
as responsible for "an astronomical vacancy rate on the federal
bench."
If it weren't
for his "that was then" partisan flexibility, Majority
Leader Tom Daschle, who is assisting with the stall, would be agreeing
with Hatch. Last year, when there were 76 vacancies on the federal
bench, Daschle complained that the federal courts were unable to
do their crucial work. The Leahy blockade has left 108 judicial
vacancies.
Under both
Democratic and Republican Senates, with a single exception (a Clinton
nominee judged "not qualified" by the ABA), the judicial
nominees of President Bush's predecessors, when nominated before
Labor Day, all were confirmed by the end of that year. Under Chairman
Leahy, only eight of President Bush's 44 judicial nominees have
made it to the Senate floor for approval. So, in contrast with his
predecessors, whose judicial nominations enjoyed confirmation rates
ranging from 93 percent to 100 percent, President Bush currently
has an 18 percent approval rate for his nominees.
If the president
weren't otherwise fully engaged, Sen. Leahy would likely be called
on to explain why he is blocking nominees who have earned the highest
ratings from his pet ABA, and who enjoy bipartisan support from
their home-state senators. Leahy's weak hand was revealed when every
Republican senator was willing to block approval of the foreign-operations
appropriations bill to protest his indefensible stall.
A city as sensitive
to whether politicians are exploiting America's war on terrorism
to advance partisan goals as it is to white powdery substances,
should be making a simple request of Sen. Leahy — just treat
President Bush's judicial nominees like your Republican predecessor
treated President Clinton's.
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