Thursday, April 12, 2007
Will Judicial Nominees be Blocked?
Roll Call (subscription required) reports that Senate Democrats are discussing how to respond to Pres. Bush's recent recess appointments. Two strategies offered are "blocking all future White House nominations" and cutting the August recess to only 10 days. Currently there are 197 nominations before various Senate committees "ranging from high-profile Cabinet and judicial posts to and low-level, largely ceremonial, slots." The article includes this excerpt:
"The Democrats' countermove is still in discussions, but sources say top Senate leaders already have begun eyeing their options and will meet to vet their next move once lawmakers are back in full swing today. Either way, the Democrats are looking to get the upper hand against the Bush administration after it made the appointments while Senators were on their spring break last week.
'The administration hasn't heard the last of this,' said a senior Democratic senate aide. 'What they did - in particular with Sam Fox's nomination last week - is absolutely outrageous. They managed to make a whole bunch of Members mad and it doesn't bode well for future attempts to move nominations through the Senate.'"Despite this report, the Senate Judiciary Committee continues towards the shared goal of confirming one circuit judge a month. Debra Ann Livingston, judicial nominee for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals testified before the Committee on Wednesday, April 11, along with three other district court nominees. Our friends at confirmthem.com report that Senators Clinton and Schumer offered their support for the candidate, who is currently the Paul J. Kellner Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. A webcast of the hearing can be found here.
# posted by Kim Loontjer @ 2:43 PM 
