The Bush White House has promised not to make any more judicial
recess appointments for the duration of the president’s term. White House
chief of staff Andrew Card met with Senate leaders this morning in an effort
to break the impasse in which Democrats have blocked more than 30 of the
president’s judicial nominees (including those who are currently the target
of Democratic filibusters). In return for Card’s promise that the president
would not use his recess appointment power for judicial nominations, Senate
Minority Leader Tom Daschle promised to let 25 judicial nominees — all of
them uncontroversial — move through the Senate. That number includes 20
District Court nominees and five appeals court nominees, who will receive
Senate action before the end of June.
The judicial nominees have been caught in a Democratic blockade
since March, when the President made a recess appointment of filibustered
appeals-court nominee William Pryor. Before that, the president had
recess-appointed Charles Pickering, another nominee who had been
filibustered by Democrats. After the Pryor appointment, Democrats pledged
to stop all judicial appointments until the president promised to give up
his power to make recess appointments to the judiciary, which is what, in
limited form, the White House did today.