Recommended Readings

2/6/12 – Our Views: Nominees need vote
In an election year — right in the Capitol — President Barack Obama took dead aim at one of America’s institutions that is in far worse shape in the polls than he is: Congress itself. read full story

2/4/12 – Crying wolf: Lee’s bent view of the Constitution
Mike Lee is crying wolf. The junior senator from the state of Utah has gone all ballistic over the fact that President Obama has a marginally different interpretation of the Constitution than he does. read full story

2/6/12 – Act with dispatch to ease federal courts’ vacancy burden
Recent attacks on judges and the courts by various candidates for office have at least raised the visibility of the role of the judiciary in American society. Unfortunately, the picture is not a promising one. read full story

2/5/12 – Senate GOP: Activist Federal Judges Wanted
The gang that decries "judicial activism" at every opportunity now wants the federal courts to activate on their behalf to broker a political dispute between the executive and legislative branches. read full story

2/5/12 – Fix confirmation process: Merkley’s proposal would expedite nominations
Both parties — and the nation — would benefit from a curtailment of the filibuster abuses that have made a mockery of the concept of majority rule and the Senate’s constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent on presidential nominations. read full story

2/4/12 – Scaling back the Senate confirmation wars
One thing Congress could do to unclog the federal government is so obvious and requires lawmakers to give up so little, even the most ardent partisan should be able to support it. Last June, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill reducing the number of executive branch positions subject to Senate confirmation. read full story

2/3/12 – Judicial Nominees: Beware the Thurmond Rule
A new tradition is developing in the dysfunctional Washington family: the election-year presidential attack on the Senate for blocking judicial nominees. read full story

2/2/02 – Following in Goodwin Liu’s shoes?
When Paul Watford was nominated to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals by President Obama in October, conventional wisdom had it his nomination process would be smoother than Goodwin Liu, who had been nominated for the same spot, but blocked by Senate Republicans on the Senate floor. read full story

2/1/12 – Senator Mike Lee: Constitutional Charlatan
Senator Lee is demonstrating contempt for the document he purports to revere by reacting to this sorry state of affairs by (1) ignoring his complicity in the problem, (2) lecturing the President and (3) taking out his anger by compounding the Senate's partisan dysfunction and punishing the third branch of government. With friends like Senator Mike Lee, the Constitution needs no enemies. read full story

1/31/12 – Rule bending is strangling governance
A pair of traditional rules, the filibuster and hold processes, have moved beyond their original intent of preventing the abuse of power by the majority to now threatening an abuse of power by the minority. read full story

1/30/12 – McEntee: Note to Mike Lee — the U.S. Constitution is vital, but so are constituents
The 2016 elections will come fast. Lee would do well to drop the bombast and get serious about governance that would actually matter to every Utahn — you know, the people he represents. read full story

1/30/12 – Obama’s proposal for Senate votes on judicial nominees deserves bipartisan approval
Year after year, whoever is president spars with opposition-party senators over confirmation of judges. In their skirmishing, they send completely uncontroversial nominees reeling, as they languish for months, not knowing when or even whether they'll be transitioning to new employment. read full story

1/30/12 – President Obama Calls Out Mike Lee’s Scorched Earth Obstructionism
Lee is, in many ways, the perfect foil to the president. While Obama wants nothing more than for the Senate to consider his nominees in a timely manner and give them an up or down vote, Lee’s short political career is marred by escalating displays of extremism and embarrassing overreach. read full story

1/30/12 – NY Times partisan hackery department: filibuster division
There is a principled argument to be made against the judicial filibuster of nominations. After eight years of supporting such filibusters, the Times doesn't have the moral authority to make it until it admits its earlier mistake or until after eight years of Democratic administrations, whichever comes first. read full story

1/28/12 – Filibustering Nominees Must End
The system for reviewing presidential appointments is broken. The Senate has a constitutional duty to provide advice and consent on the naming of judges and high-ranking executive branch officials. But the process has been hijacked by cynical partisanship and cheap tricks. read full story

1/27/12 – Roe’s Lone Remaining Defender Nominated to Ninth Circuit?
In the decades since Roe, a cottage industry of legal academics has been busy trying to explain how its result could be justified by other reasoning. So it’s a very unpleasant surprise to discover that perhaps the lone remaining defender of Roe has been nominated by President Obama to a Ninth Circuit seat. read full story

1/27/12 – There Is a Judicial Confirmation Crisis, and the GOP Is Causing It
President Obama was right to call out the problem of nominee obstruction, but he was wrong that it's a bipartisan issue. And that party is not the president's. read full story

1/27/12 – Judicial Nominations in 2011: A Review
Last year ended with 100 current and future vacancies on our judiciary, an alarmingly high rate that has persisted for more than two years now. read full story

1/25/12 – Obama deserves props for taking on GOP obstructionism
Kudos to Barack Obama for raising the critical issue of nomination reform last night. Now the test will be whether he presses it over the course of the year. read full story

1/25/12 – World-Herald editorial: Vote of confidence in a capable judge
It is no surprise that Judge John Gerrard received a strong endorsement from both of Nebraska's U.S. senators and has won confirmation to the federal bench by a vote of 74 to 16. read full story

1/23/12 – Administration nominees awaiting next move by GOP
Senate Republicans are returning to Washington in an angry mood over President Barack Obama's appointments to two key agencies during a year-end break. read full story

1/23/12 – Senate May Do Even Less This Year After Recess Appointments
The U.S. Senate returns to work today smarting from record-low approval ratings for Congress and facing the prospect of a second year of little achievement before voters decide in November which party will control the chamber. read full story

1/20/12 – For Obama, blocks at every Senate turn
If it takes an absurd man to reveal the absurdity of the political process, then United States Democratic senator Robert Menendez is to be congratulated for his near three-month, single-handed blocking of one of President Barack Obama's most uncontroversial judicial appointments. read full story

1/20/12 – Recess Move Changes Stakes for Nominations
The White House has sent 181 nominations to the Senate that have yet to be confirmed. In many cases, senators blocked the nominations as a tactic to gain political leverage, often on unrelated issues. read full story

1/20/12 – Santorum: As President, Romney Wouldn’t Appoint Conservative Judges
Rick Santorum is worried that, if elected president, Mitt Romney won’t appoint judicial conservatives to the Supreme Court. read full story

1/19/12 – Senate Must Act Now and Throughout 2012 to Reduce Pressure on Federal Courts
As we enter an election year likely to be rife with partisan gridlock in Congress, few are expecting a banner year in terms of judicial confirmations. But history shows that confirmations often occur throughout election years and, with 85 vacancies at the beginning of the year and more certain to occur throughout the year, the federal judiciary desperately needs the confirmation process to speed up, not slow down further in 2012. read full story

1/19/12 – SANTORUM: Romney’s record of judicial capitulation
What sort of justice to the Supreme Court will Mitt Romney nominate - a Souter or a Thomas? A Miers or an Alito? A Kennedy or a Scalia? His record as governor of Massachusetts gives no cause for optimism. read full story

1/18/12 – Study Confirms Jump in Federal Court Vacancies; Diversity of Nominees a Bright Spot
Hardly shocking is the report from the Brookings Institution’s Russell Wheeler that shows vacancies on the federal bench have jumped during President Obama’s tenure. As Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy has noted time and again, obstruction in the Senate of judicial selections has intensified. read full story

1/17/12 – EDITORIAL: Revive Easton’s federal judgeship, courthouse
A group of Lehigh Valley-based attorneys are leading a campaign to have someone from the Easton area appointed as a U.S. district judge. If that happens, the courtroom would serve as the newly appointed judge’s home base. read full story

1/17/12 – The wonderful world of judicial confirmations
Whatever the reason, Menendez did an about-face. On Friday, he said he was dropping his objections after an “in-depth discussion” with Shwartz. For those looking for another explanation, the most likely one is a little presidential pressure and a lot of bad publicity. read full story

1/17/12 – Obama and the Courts, by the Numbers
President Barack Obama's picks for the federal judiciary have run up against the kind of GOP obstruction in the Senate that sent a few packing. Even a senator from the president's own party tried to hold up a nomination to a federal appeals court. read full story

1/16/12 – Time for a Beer Summit Between Coburn And Mikkanen
Maybe Coburn just doesn't like the way Mikkanen knots his ties. We just don't know. But it's just not good enough, at a time when Oklahoma is short-handed on its federal bench, to allow Coburn to say, ominously, "I know plenty," without ever letting the rest of us in on the secret. read full story

1/14/12 – Fill Vacancies
U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani's ascension to the Middle District of Pennsylvania bench this week was living proof that the Senate can get past partisan gamesmanship to confirm well-qualified nominees. But Judge Mariani fills just one of the three seats that had been open on the Middle District bench. read full story

1/13/12 – “Why won’t progressives fight for federal judges?”
Progressives are getting the country we're getting because of our choices — not as individuals, for the most part, but certainly as a group, a "coalition." When the Right builds a media outlet to get its message out (Fox News, say), it allows that outlet to operate at a loss for as long as it takes. Why? Because the Right is on a mission. When the Left builds a media outlet (Air America, say), it forces that outlet to turn a profit or go under. Why? Because the Left is out to lunch. And that's especially true when the subject is the courts. read full story

1/11/12 – Rick Santorum on Appointing Constitutionalist Judges
Rick Santorum is no stranger to the issue of judges. As a U.S. Senator, he stood against activist judicial nominees time and again. As a Republican leader in the Senate, he was pivotal in the fight to confirm U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito. Rick Santorum knows what it is like to take on the left and to win on judges. read full story

1/10/12 – President Obama’s Judicial Nominees: A Question of Qualifications
With lifetime appointments at stake, and the potential to shape the federal bench for decades to come, the stakes are too high to get it wrong. We the people deserve better than to be on the receiving end of President Obama’s personal affirmative action plan for the judiciary. Qualifications aren’t optional. read full story

1/10/12 – Here’s More Evidence That Politics Is for the Vindictive: Senator Robert Menendez does New Jersey proud.
Only 10 days into the new year, and already we have a political sin worthy of the 2012 championship. New Jersey U.S. Senator Robert Menendez has exposed himself as a breathtakingly vindictive pol who has no qualms about messing around with the country’s judicial system in what looks to a lot of people like an attempt to settle a personal feud. read full story

1/9/12 – Mr. Menendez’s Missing ‘Blue Slip’
His action sends a chilling message to prosecutors pursuing possible corruption by powerful politicians: Beware of future payback against friends or relatives. Mr. Menendez owes Judge Shwartz’s nomination a serious second look. read full story

1/9/12 – Senator should drop block of judicial nominee
If Judge Shwartz is as unqualified as Mr. Menendez makes her out to be, there would be no better place to reveal her shortcomings than during a confirmation hearing. Mr. Menendez should remove his block to allow his colleagues and the public to make up their own minds. read full story

1/7/12 – Appointments Challenge Senate Role, Experts Say

read full story

1/6/12 – Senate Fail
Robert Menendez can't get to his opponent so he goes after his opponent's girlfriend. read full story

1/6/12 – Calling out one of our own: Sen Menendez holds up a judge
Good job Senator!  Your petulant tantrum, Republicanesque in form and function, is awesome and helpful, because the Federal judiciary is just overflowing with judges.  Nope, nary a backlog in sight (what? 85 openings in 858 judicial seats seems high to you?). read full story

1/6/12 – Recess Appointments and President Obama’s Surprising Restraint
For all the brouhaha surrounding President Obama's recess appointments this week of three new members for the National Labor Relations Board and of Richard Cordray to serve as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, what is most surprising - and most welcome from a constitutional perspective - is the President's restraint in his use of the recess appointment power. What's scary is the precedent it may set for other Administrations' less judicious use of that power. read full story

1/4/12 – Santorum and Romney Would Appoint Conservative Judges
We congratulate Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney for their shared victory in Iowa last night and offer some brief thoughts on the sort of judicial nominations we can we expect from these men if one of them becomes president. read full story

1/4/12 – Rick Santorum Picked The Ethical Trainwreck Who Thinks Child Labor Laws Are Unconstitutional As His Favorite Justice
At a recent GOP debate, Santorum was the only candidate who identified a single justice as his favorite current member of the Supreme Court — Justice Clarence Thomas. read full story

1/4/12 – Partisan politics getting in way of filling judicial positions
More than a quarter of current judicial vacancies could be filled with nominees who already have been cleared by the Judiciary Committee -- most with little or no opposition -- but have yet to receive a confirmation vote by the full Senate.  You can blame calculated, partisan politics. read full story

1/4/12 – Rick Santorum and Judicial Appointments
One very important factor is which candidate is most likely to nominate excellent Supreme Court justices and lower-court judges and to work tenaciously to get them confirmed. On this score, the candidate in whom I have by far the greatest confidence is Rick Santorum. read full story

1/3/12 – A Federal Judge Responds Defiantly to Chief Justice Roberts
Amid the clamor over judicial independence, and with scores of judicial nominations left pending to the detriment of litigants everywhere, John Roberts decided that now was the time to devote virtually his entire annual message to an explanation of why the Supreme Court is different from the rest of the federal judiciary when it comes to recusal matters. read full story

– Romney Supreme Court Appointees Might Live More Than A Hundred Years Suggests Longevity Studies
As if we already didn't have plenty of reasons to vote for Obama over Romney, consider the implications of increasing lifespans on the composition of the Supreme Court of the United States over the next half century, or more. read full story

1/2/12 – Obama and the definition of ‘recess’
President Barack Obama’s ability to jam through appointments during the congressional break depends on one big factor: What the definition of “recess” is. read full story

1/2/12 – Harry Reid Beat Back Majority of Filibusters in 2011
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid managed to win more than half of the filibuster-breaking votes on the Senate floor in 2011, besting his success rate from the previous year. read full story

1/2/12 – Washington gridlock ends outstanding career
Almost three years ago, applicants were sought for a federal court vacancy in Rochester. The story of that vacancy demonstrates how broken Washington is, and how partisanship in the Senate has stifled democracy and ruined careers. read full story

1/2/12 – NC judicial emergency enters 7th year
North Carolina has the second-longest federal judicial emergency in the nation. The vacancy on the Eastern NC federal district court is now entering its SEVENTH year. read full story

1/1/12 – The Supreme Court Chief Justice Cops Out
John Roberts is defending the Supreme Court's indefensible refusal to follow ethics rules. read full story

12/31/11 – Opinion: The Grinch who stole the federal courts’ Christmas
McConnell refused to grant unanimous consent, so that the Senate might consider 21 judicial nominees. His inaction is only the latest skirmish in the confirmation wars that jeopardize the federal courts and must cease for the good of the nation. read full story

12/31/11 – More federal courts needed along border
Drug smuggling and illegal immigration cases are overwhelming the dockets, and they will continue to do so as the crackdown on these types of cases increases. read full story

12/30/11 – Confirm U.S. judge
The Senate has delayed the confirmation of 20 federal judges, including a highly qualified nominee for the federal bench in Utah, because of partisan wrangling over another issue. read full story

12/30/11 – Work the Senate left undone . . .
George Pyle collects a series of links discussing how congressional dysfunction is hobbling the judicial confirmation process. read full story

12/29/11 – Bench vacancies
When Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. was elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005, no one envisioned that, six years later, his seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C., Circuit would still be vacant. read full story

12/29/11 – Judicial openings erode U.S. justice system
The openings in 85 judgeships erode speedy, economical and fair case disposition. Thus, President Obama must promptly nominate, and senators must quickly confirm, numerous talented judges read full story

12/28/11 – A favor for Chuck?
A lack of evidence to the contrary suggests that one Kevin McNulty is qualified for a seat at the federal bench — to which he’s just been named on the recommendation of New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg. There’s only one problem — how he came by that nomination in the first place. read full story

12/28/11 – With nominees lined up for confirmation, the Senate shirks its duty: editorial
When the Senate left Washington last weekend, it also left a stack of pending judicial nominations so large it amounts to dereliction of duty. read full story

12/22/11 – Unconstitutional acts: Senate Republicans use filibuster to avoid voting on judicial nominees
The U.S. Constitution requires that federal judicial nominees be confirmed by the Senate. But lately Senate Republicans have been using the filibuster to prevent them from even coming to a vote. read full story

12/22/11 – Nomination, appointment gridlock for judgeships continues
The delays and stalling on President Barack Obama's judicial appointments - and other appointments, as well - continues. read full story

12/27/11 – Giving Senator Charles Schumer heat for this? (I don’t get it…)
NY Senator Charles Schumer’s brother in law has been nominated by President Obama to be a Federal Judge in New Jersey.  For some reason, this has really annoyed some and gotten headlines. read full story

12/26/11 – Judicial delays are unacceptable
The president has been sluggish in making nominations, especially in Texas. But even when the White House has forwarded nominations, Senate Republicans have unacceptably slowed down the confirmation process. read full story

12/22/11 – Peltier and Mikkanen: It Does Not Feel Like Christmas
Sending the nomination back to the President without the courtesy of a formal hearing was a slap in the face of American Indians everywhere. read full story

12/22/11 – Nomination, appointment gridlock for judgeships continues

read full story

12/20/11 – More heated partisanship puts community at risk
District Attorney Mike Green, a Democrat, blames local partisan sniping for the undoing of his nomination to a federal judgeship. If he's right, and it's likely that he is, then this community is at risk. read full story

12/19/11 – McConnell Takes Every Single Judicial Nominee Hostage To Sabotage Consumer Protection Agency
The Senate closed out the year without confirming any of the 21 judicial nominees currently awaiting a vote on the Senate floor. read full story

12/19/11 – As Senate Leaves Town, McConnell Blocks Votes on More than 50 Nominees
The Senate concluded its last official day of business for the year on Saturday, without taking action on more than 50 judicial and executive branch nominations ready for an immediate Senate confirmation vote. read full story

12/19/11 – Confirmations lag as Senate breaks
For judicial confirmations, 2011 went out not with a bang but a whimper. read full story

12/16/11 – Recess Appointments and the Judiciary
In the wake of the unjustifiable Senate filibuster of the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last week, we are now quickly approaching the end of 2011 with no end to the judicial vacancy crisis in sight. read full story

12/16/11 – Senate filibuster is not the problem
The Democratic majority must not match the hypocrisy of the Republicans with their own hypocrisy by adopting the "nuclear option." read full story

12/15/11 – On Judges, Murkowski Stands Alone Within Her Party
Since President Obama took office, Senate Republicans have used every weapon in their arsenal to slow down or prevent altogether confirmation of his judicial nominees. With partisan obstruction as their lodestar, they have abandoned the principles they professed to have when they were pushing for rapid confirmation of President Bush’s nominees. read full story

12/15/11 – Clearing the Benches
Neither party has much incentive to crusade energetically against this attack on the judicial branch. The opposition party never wants to fill the judgeships, at least not until its president gets to do the nominating. The majority is wary of accusations that it is “politicizing” the courts by packing them with partisan appointees.

read full story

12/14/11 – Bipartisan Calls Build for Nomination Process Reform
Adding to a growing bipartisan chorus to break the obstructionist impasse over judicial nominations in Congress, two more former government officials from the two sides of the political aisle are urging reform. read full story

12/14/11 – Senate filibuster’s sad, maddening history
In the latest successful Republican filibuster threat, Maine’s two senators joined in blocking the confirmation of a new head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — not because they opposed the nominee, but because they wanted changes in the bureau’s structure. read full story

12/14/11 – Specter Salutes Justice Dept, Slams Republicans
Specter, turning to his former colleagues in the Senate, said the Republican filibuster of Caitlin Halligan, a nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, was the hallmark of a GOP that longer tolerated moderates. “This was a clear cut case for no filibuster,” Specter said. read full story

12/14/11 – Rock Bottom
Now that another highly qualified judicial nominee has been left as road kill, the question is how much lower can the confirmation process sink. read full story

12/13/11 – Who Will Replace First Circuit Judge Kermit Lipez?
With the recent Senate Republican filibuster of judicial nominee Caitlin Halligan to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, it wouldn’t be a surprise if President Barack Obama has become a bit gun-shy about making new judicial appointments. read full story

12/13/11 – Broken Senate, Broken Courts
Washington is mired in partisan gridlock, with the White House and Congress divided even on issues with broad public support. But hyper-partisan politics does more than just stop the legislative and executive branches from getting anything done. It also cripples the federal judiciary, one of the bedrocks of our democracy. read full story

12/12/11 – Break the Senate’s nomination logjam
There is a simple way to break up this unnecessary, and potentially costly, confirmation logjam: Give the Senate 90 days to vote on a nominee — to confirm or reject the president’s choice. If there is no vote by then, the nomination would be considered confirmed. read full story

12/12/11 – Minority judges things differently
In 2005 Georgia’s senators, Republicans Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, wrote a joint op-ed in this newspaper declaring “every judge nominated by this president or any president deserves an up-or-down vote.” But on Tuesday, both of them voted to uphold a filibuster against Caitlin Halligan, a former New York state solicitor general whom President Barack Obama nominated to fill a slot on the D.C. Court of Appeals. read full story

12/9/11 – With Nominations, the Senate GOP Legislates by Gridlock
The Senate GOP under President Obama has mastered the art of proactive apathy. read full story

12/9/11 – Nuclear Options: Remember when?
President Obama's nominations seldom please moderates, but the GOP's cynical performance mocks conservatism's professed principles. Everyone knew this would happen. read full story

12/9/11 – GOP obstructing on federal appointments

read full story

12/8/11 – Unprecedented Obstruction and False Equivalencies
As Dems see it, GOP abuses are setting a new standard — which Democrats will take advantage of the next time they’re in the minority. read full story

12/8/11 – The GOP, the ‘Party of Yes, But … ‘
Or even this: Yes, President Obama, go ahead and nominate well-qualified people -- such as Caitlin Halligan or Goodwin Liu -- to federal judgeships, but … no, we aren't going to approve any of them, so there! read full story

12/8/11 – When will Congress wake up?
This is a very bad week for Congress. Paralysis reigns. Gridlock prevails. Accomplishments are nonexistent. read full story

12/8/11 – Senate GOP blocks nominee
Is Halligan’s nomination “extraordinary”? Of course not. But using the filibuster to block her appointment could be. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., notes it “could throw into chaos nominations at the circuit court for a long time.” read full story

12/8/11 – Another nominee misused
The Senate's insidious use of judicial nominees as political pawns continued Tuesday with a Republican filibuster of Caitlin J. Halligan. read full story

12/8/11 – Rejection of D.C. Circuit nominee may shift judicial nomination practices
The rejection of Halligan, general counsel with the New York County DA's office and former NYS solicitor general, is the second by the Senate who rejected Goodwin Liu's nomination to the 9th Circuit in May. read full story

12/8/11 – Caitlin Halligan: D.C. Circuit Court Judicial Nominee Filibustered
This week's Republican filibustering of judicial nominee Caitlin Halligan brought to light a whole bunch of ironies. read full story

12/8/11 – Senate GOP blocks nominee; Gay rights: The global campaign
Caitlin J. Halligan, 44, earned a law degree magna cum laude from Georgetown University. She clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, then worked for the New York attorney general, serving as state solicitor general for five years. After a few years in private practice, she joined the Manhattan district attorney’s office. She also served without pay as counsel to the group rebuilding Lower Manhattan after 9/11. read full story

12/8/11 – Senate GOP Vows Golden Rule on Judges
Senate Republicans have high hopes of reclaiming the majority and possibly the White House next year, and that’s precisely why they say this week’s filibuster of D.C. Circuit Court nominee Caitlin Halligan is not a harbinger of a freeze on President Barack Obama’s judicial nominations. read full story

12/8/11 – GOP Disinformation Campaign on Filibustering Judges
Apparently recognizing the severe and possibly permanent damage they did to the judicial nominations process – and the entire U.S. court system – by filibustering Caitlin Halligan, Senate Republicans are running to the press to do damage control. read full story

12/7/11 – Lousy Filibusters: Caitlin Halligan Edition
Fifty-four Senators voted yesterday to confirm the nomination of an experienced and accomplished lawyer, Caitlin Halligan, to the D.C. Circuit, which in the twisted and blindly ideological world of the United States Senate means she didn’t get confirmed. read full story

12/7/11 – 14 GOP Senators Slam Senate GOP’s ‘Unconstitutional’ Filibuster*
Yesterday, Senate Republicans voted nearly unanimously to block Caitlan Halligan’s nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Only Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) broke party lines to join the 54-45 vote to allow Halligan to move forward — leaving Halligan six votes short of what she needed to break the GOP filibuster. read full story

12/7/11 – Caitlan Halligan Lost, and So Did You
The American people lose when highly capable people are turned away from government because of the need to fill the B-roll of a campaign attack ad. read full story

12/7/11 – Judicial filibuster: Not so ‘extraordinary’ after all
Remember the "Gang of 14"? That was the bipartisan group of senators who six years ago agreed not to filibuster judicial nominees except under "extraordinary circumstances." Well, looks like some people have decided to redefine "extraordinary" to include "politically convenient." read full story

12/6/11 – An unworthy filibuster by the Senate on Caitlin Halligan
The insidious use of judicial nominees as political pawns continued Tuesday with a Republican filibuster of Caitlin J. Halligan. read full story

12/6/11 – Judicial System Continues to Fall Victim to Republican Obstruction
Today, Republicans in the United States Senate blocked Caitlin Halligan's nomination to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She had been nominated to fill the 9th seat on this 11-seat court -- which is now more than a quarter vacant -- and today's filibuster is unwarranted and irresponsible. read full story

12/6/11 – Halligan was Filibustered for the DC Circuit
The Senate has once again brought discredit upon itself, as it did during much of the Bush Administration, not by failing to confirm a nominee, but by refusing to vote on a nominee. read full story

12/6/11 – The Senate GOP’s Appalling Judicial Confirmation Double Standard
Earlier this afternoon, the Senate voted 54-45 to allow D.C. Circuit nominee Caitlan Halligan’s nomination to move forward — which, in the bizarro universe that is the United States Senate, is six votes shy of what she needs. read full story

12/6/11 – Halligan is qualified
If the Senate remains enmeshed in partisan politics over outstanding nominees like Halligan, then everyone’s faith in the judicial system fails. read full story

12/6/11 – Outrage machine grinds away
Discrediting perfectly qualified nominees to the federal judiciary is a dreary, familiar business - one whose latest target is Caitlin Halligan, a former New York solicitor general who once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Ever since President Obama nominated her for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals last year, critics have been combing her record for evidence of dangerous radicalism. read full story

12/5/11 – Will The Senate GOP Continue Its War On Excellence Tomorrow?
In the era of Mitch McConnell, the mere fact that a nominee is both outstandingly qualified and widely praised for fairness is no reason to stand in the way of a good filibuster. read full story

12/2/11 – Debunking The Media Smear Campaign Against Judicial Nominee Caitlin Halligan
Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed a motion to cut off a filibuster against the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Halligan has been smeared by the right-wing media based on a number of myths about her record. Media Matters has posted an extended debunking of those media myths and presents a summary of them here. read full story

12/2/11 – D.C. Circuit Nominee Caitlin Halligan – A Model of Legal Restraint
One would think that conservative Senators, who decry what they call “judicial activism” and claim to revere judges who believe in legal restraint, judges who will apply the law and not make it up according to their own beliefs, would be lining up to urge that Halligan be promptly confirmed. read full story

12/2/11 – Senate Schedules Cloture Vote for Caitlin Halligan
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has scheduled a cloture vote for Tuesday at noon on Caitlin Halligan's nomination to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Hopefully, that means the Senate will be able to finally cast an up-or-down vote on an exceptional nominee who was approved by the Judiciary Committee almost nine months ago. read full story

12/2/11 – Doug Kendall: Why can’t Ed Whelan take “yes” for an answer?
You would think that Whelan would be overjoyed that many of President Obama’s nominees, including D.C. Circuit nominee Caitlin Halligan – scheduled for a cloture vote next Tuesday -- have emphasized the priority they put on the Constitution’s text and history. read full story

12/1/11 – NCJW Calls on Senate to Confirm Caitlin Halligan
The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) today called upon the US Senate to confirm Caitlin Halligan for a seat on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. read full story

11/30/11 – Droney approval a start
In a demonstration that at least some things can still get done in Washington, the U.S. Senate on Monday confirmed by an 88-0 vote the nomination of Christopher F. Droney of West Hartford to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. read full story

11/30/11 – Who’s afraid of the ABA?
Of the 185 judicial nominees that the White House has sent to the American Bar Association committee for vetting, 14 have been rated "not qualified." read full story

11/28/11 – The ABA Ratings and Minority Nominees: Shedding Light on Disparate Impact
The secrecy around the American Bar Association's judicial vetting process is a fact, probably in their view necessary in order to arrive at firm judgments about professionals. For many, acutely among those of us who identify and promote talented minority candidates for the bench, that secrecy breeds suspicion, particularly when the outcomes seem to have a disparate impact on minorities. read full story

11/28/11 – Why Can’t Obama Get His Judges Approved?
Barack Obama isn’t very good at playing legal politics. The New York Times reports that a startling number of Obama’s prospective nominees to the federal bench—14 in all—have gotten a rating of “not qualified” from the American Bar Association, to which Obama sent those nominations before formally submitting them to the Senate. read full story

11/28/11 – Bam’s bench bungle
 Last week, news leaked that the ABA has secretly informed the White House that it rated 14 out of a potential 185 nominees for federal judgeships “unqualified” — most of them women and minorities put forth in the name of “diversity.” read full story

11/23/11 – Senate Judiciary Commitee Slows Confirmation Hearings In The Wake of GOP Obstructionism
So the Judiciary Committee’s decision to slow down hearings really just brings one of the Senate’s still functioning arms in line with it’s completely broken floor process. read full story

11/23/11 – White House Clashes with ABA over Judicial Candidates
The American Bar Association has shot down 14 of the roughly 185 potential nominees the administration asked it to evaluate, deeming them “unqualified,” reports the New York Times on Wednesday. read full story

11/23/11 – Washington Post Editorial: Confirm Caitlin Halligan
 The editorial highlights Ms. Halligan's outstanding legal qualifications, extensive appellate experience gained during a noteworthy career encompassing both government service and private practice, and bipartisan support. read full story

11/23/11 – Washington Post Urges Halligan Confirmation
In an editorial today, the Washington Post urged the Senate to confirm Caitlin Halligan to serve on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Halligan was originally nominated by President Obama in September 2010 and was approved by the Senate judiciary committee seven months ago. read full story

11/23/11 – Hispanic National Bar Association Addresses New York Times Piece on ABA Ratings and Obama Prospects for Judgeships
 Yesterday, the New York Times published a piece on the impact of the American Bar Association (ABA) ratings on the President's list of candidates for federal judgeships. The article highlights the number of potential judicial nominees designated as "not qualified," a number of those with this designation belonging to a minority group, and the impact this has on the need to fill judicial vacancies. read full story

11/22/11 – Senate should confirm Caitlin Halligan to the D.C. Circuit Court
Ms. Halligan has had a distinguished career and deserves to be confirmed. read full story

11/22/11 – Bar association has slowed Obama appointments
This rejection rate is much higher than that experienced in Bush or Clinton administrations. read full story

11/21/11 – Thanksgiving and the third branch
The U.S. federal courts have reason to be thankful on this Thanksgiving holiday. read full story

11/18/11 – Top Five Things to Know About Judicial Nominee Caitlin Halligan
In late October, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated that he would soon push for a floor vote on Halligan's nomination. read full story

11/15/11 – Dialogue with Victoria Nourse on Lochner
University of Wisconsin Law Professor (and Seventh Circuit nominee) Victoria Nourse and David Bernstein discussed Lochner v. New York for the Federalist Society’s Madison chapter. read full story

11/15/11 – A more complex picture of the federal bench
The NAACP wants to see a black district court judge appointed -- but that doesn't mean a black judge doesn't sit on the Eastern District bench. read full story

11/15/11 – New precedent: Gleason is first woman on federal bench in Alaska
Alaska has a new U.S. District Court judge, the first woman to serve on the federal bench in the state. Sharon Gleason of Anchorage, who has served as a state Superior Court judge since 2001, received confirmation from the U.S. Senate Tuesday. read full story

11/14/11 – The Urgent Need to Fill The Current D.C. Circuit Vacancies
Obama and the Senate should swiftly fill the D.C. Circuit openings. The quantity, complexity and importance of the D.C. Circuit’s appeals mean that the court requires all eleven judgeships to be filled, if it is to promptly, economically and fairly decide cases. read full story

11/14/11 – Was Nominee For Patent Court Rejected Because He Is Gay?
DuMont had all the makings of an exemplary judge. He is a veteran intellectual property litigator with a top law firm and was declared to be “unanimously well qualified” by the American Bar Association. He is also a distinguished graduate from Yale and Stanford and has clerked for Richard Posner, the conservative appeals court judge and intellectual giant. So what happened? read full story

11/12/11 – Who’s To Blame For Openly Gay Judicial Nominee Edward DuMont Not Getting A Hearing?
After waiting more than 18 months for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination, DuMont formally asked Obama to withdraw his nomination. read full story

11/11/11 – Civil Cases Languish in Federal Courts
Skyrocketing criminal caseloads and a persistently high vacancy rate on the federal courts have left civil litigants, “from bereaved spouses to corporate giants” waiting years for their day in court. read full story

11/10/11 – Federal Criminal Caseload Grew 70 Percent In The Last Decade, But The Judicial Vacancy Crisis Continues
 While filibusters and delays kill new judicial confirmations, the federal courts’ caseload is exploding. read full story

11/7/11 – A Speedy Nominee
The rule of thumb in judicial nominations is that a circuit court nominee with Supreme-Court-level credentials will have a harder time getting confirmed than a nominee without those credentials. read full story

11/4/11 – Why ‘supermajority’ no longer works in the Senate
Getting anything done in the Senate is like wading through knee-deep molasses. The difference between today and the Senate of the 1970s, when I was an intern for Sen. Mark Hatfield, is stark. A Senate that routinely debated amendments from both sides and decided almost all issues by simple majority is gone. read full story

11/4/11 – What’s In the Pipeline for Judicial Vacancies?
Confirmation of judicial nominees has been a very slow process during this Congress. read full story

11/3/11 – ACS Issue Brief: Extraordinary Circumstances: The Legacy of the Gang of 14 and a Proposal for Judicial Nominations Reform
There is, however, a price for political games, which are played by both parties’ often switching sides as their relative positions change. Voters will lose confidence in our republican form of government and increasingly believe that elected leaders are in it for themselves, rather than for the good of the country. The proposal we have outlined here is our attempt to change that. read full story

11/3/11 – Ed Whelan’s “Hilariously Confused” Attack On Proposed Reform Of Judicial Confirmation Process
The American Constitution Society has published an issue brief by law professors Michael Gerhardt and Richard Painter setting forth a "proposal for judicial nominations reform" that suggests limiting the power of a minority of senators to obstruct a judicial nominee from being confirmed. Predictably, National Review Online's Ed Whelan -- who professes to be an opponent of filibustering judicial nominees, but always seems to provide cover for Republican attempts to filibuster President Obama' nominees -- is on the war path against the report. read full story

11/2/11 – Beyond the Beltway: Courting Silence
It is a revealing, and perhaps sad, commentary on the state of the GOP nomination process that so little - if any - discussion has been spent on the proper role of the federal government's most powerful branch, the scope of its powers, and the identity of its future members. read full story

11/2/11 – Midlands Voices: Preserve our independent judiciary
The federal courts are under attack. Powerful political voices are calling for a significant curtailment of federal judicial power. This affects our own federal court here in Omaha. read full story

11/1/11 – Assault on our courts is downright un-American
Here’s a profound paradox: Republican candidates for president are competing for conservative votes by advancing increasingly radical proposals for eviscerating the federal judiciary. read full story

11/1/11 – NAACP request reasonable
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People expressed its justifiable contempt in Greenville this week as its leadership called for the appointment of African-American judges to the U.S. District Court bench. Though nearly half the state’s black population lives under the jurisdiction of the Eastern District, no African-American has won appointment to that court. read full story

11/1/11 – Judges as punching bags
Beating up on federal judges is nothing new for conservative politicians. But the near-unanimous embrace of that tactic by the 2012 Republican presidential field is nevertheless depressing. Candidates who trumpet their support for the Constitution are seeking to hobble one of that document's central protections: an independent judiciary. read full story

10/31/11 – Perry’s Texas Supreme Court picks criticized as too business-friendly
Over his 10 years in office, Rick Perry has picked more Texas Supreme Court justices than any other governor, and if he wins the White House, his choices could be a clue about what kind of justices he would nominate in Washington. read full story

10/27/11 – NRO’s Whelan Suggests Civil Rights Work Doesn’t Qualify Attorneys For Appointment To Important Court
In a blog post yesterday, National Review Online's Ed Whelan reported that "President Obama is on the verge of nominating NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyer Debo P. Adegbile to the D.C. Circuit," a court that is often called the second most important court in the land. read full story

10/27/11 – Inventory of Posts on D.C. Circuit Nominee Caitlin Halligan
Amidst all the talk of other courts that face “judicial emergencies” and despite the fact that the D.C. Circuit is underworked, there is buzz that Senate majority leader Harry Reid may soon press for a floor vote on Caitlin Halligan’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit. read full story

10/26/11 – Debo P. Adegbile, NAACP Lawyer in NAMUDNO, Rumored to Be Nominated to D.C. Circuit
 If Adegbile does get a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I expect Senator Sessions and others to spend a lot of time discussing the constitutionality of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. read full story

10/26/11 – The Next D.C. Circuit Nominee
Ed Whelan is "reliably informed" that President Obama is on the verge of nominating NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyer Debo P. Adegbile to the D.C. Circuit. read full story

10/25/11 – Race and judicial appointments
The N.C. NAACP today "urges," "implores" and "demands" that Sens. Kay Hagan and Richard Burr recommend the appointment of a black candidate to fill a judicial vacancy in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. read full story

10/24/11 – Judge Not
Progressives now seem to respond to news of the war on Obama’s judges by doing nothing more than whining about how they have lost the war on Obama’s judges. read full story

10/24/11 – Republican Candidates Want the Federal Judiciary to Be More Like American Idol
The New York Times reports that Republican candidates for the presidency want to eliminate certain cases from the court's docket (like same-sex marriage), impose term limits for judges, give Congress the power to overrule the Supreme Court, abolish the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and cut judicial budgets -- all this in the name of ending "judicial activism". read full story

10/24/11 – McCain warns nominations holdups could hurt GOP
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said last week that he has privately warned fellow GOP Senators not to go overboard in blocking President Barack Obama's nominees — noting it could hurt a future Republican president. read full story

10/21/11 – It’s Time for a South Asian Article III Judge
Diversifying the federal bench has been a goal and hallmark of the Obama administration. Despite the current political climate, President Obama has made significant inroads in making the judicial system reflect the communities it serves. Recognizing this progress, the time is now ripe for the president to nominate a South Asian Article III judge in California. read full story

10/20/11 – Pat Buchanan: The Supreme Court Is Way Too Diverse
Buchanan is still clamoring for a Supreme Court with fewer minorities, even as he foretells the death of white America, using some indelicate demographic analysis-cum-butchery to argue that minorities are overrepresented on the high court. read full story

10/20/11 – Economic Diversity in the Federal Judiciary
Unless we radically improve the educational opportunity and mobility of the least-off, economic diversity can probably never be “truly” achieved in the judiciary. In the meantime, with the potential capture of two other federal branches by moneyed interests, we can only hope judges will be cognizant of their relatively insulated positions and vigilant against decisions privileging the rich over the many. read full story

10/20/11 – America’s broken Senate unlikely to confirm many judges next year
The Senate’s slow trickle of judicial confirmations will likely cease once the presidential election is underway. read full story

10/19/11 – Judicial Activism and Obama’s Judicial Vacancy Problem
Justice Scalia provided some great advice to a President that has both failed to make the judicial nomination process a priority, while at the same time, nominated various individuals to the federal bench that even his Democrat friends in the Senate could not even support. read full story

10/19/11 – What Happens if Obama Can’t Fill Judicial Vacancies?
It’s hard to overstate the extent to which next year will feature a complete slowdown in the pace of judicial confirmations. In addition to the partisan pressures of a presidential campaign, it’s simply the case that Republicans have a strategic interest in denying the administration’s judicial nominees. read full story

10/19/11 – Senate Continues to Move Slowly on Judges; Leahy Blasts Ongoing Obstruction
The Senate confirmed three federal judges today, taking an incremental step toward addressing the high number of vacancies besetting the federal bench. read full story

10/19/11 – Nebraska judge a worthy nominee
Judge John Gerrard has served impressively on the Nebraska Supreme Court. He deserves U.S. Senate confirmation to serve as the state's next federal judge. read full story

10/18/11 – A Land without Borking
The theatrical attacks on aspiring U.S. Supreme Court justices are, in essence, a way of imposing some sort of democratic, populist control over a branch of government that is inherently anti-democratic in its function. read full story

10/18/11 – Here come the judges? Maybe not.
The tussle over nominations, oddly enough, comes just as the Senate is in the throes of a particularly productive confirming spurt: Its members have approved 11 judges since returning from the September recess (maybe they just needed a little time in the time-out corner before deciding they could get along). read full story

10/18/11 – Is President Obama’s Latest Judicial Nominee Too Qualified To Get Confirmed?
Yesterday, President Obama nominated Paul Watford to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On paper, his nomination should be a cakewalk. read full story

10/18/11 – Romney Gets Borked
As Republicans stymie President Obama's judicial nominees at an unprecedented rate, they are fond of arguing that the Democrats did it too. read full story

10/17/11 – Durbin calls for change to filibuster rule
Frustrated with Senate Republicans blocking a Democratic majority of 51 senators from passing President Barack Obama’s American Jobs Act, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) said he's willing to change the filibuster rule to require dissenting legislators to speak continually against a bill. read full story

10/17/11 – Help Wanted: Case Delays Likely to Grow with Deaths of Five 9th Circuit Judges This Year
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals takes more time to issue opinions than any other appeals court. Some fear the pace will slow even more with the deaths of five appeals judges this year. read full story

10/14/11 – Indiana’s first African American federal judge ‘had the great fortune to have great mentors’
Tanya Walton Pratt acknowledges she was in the right place at the right time to make history by becoming the first African American federal judge in Indiana. read full story

– Sen. Feinstein on Creation of New Federal Judgeships

10/13/11 – The Republicans’ Unprecedented Obstructionism by the Numbers
Not content that federal judges are now retiring at twice the rate that replacements are being confirmed, Congressional Republicans headed off to their five-week August recess without taking action on 20 Obama judicial nominees (16 of them approved unanimously by the Judiciary Committee). read full story

10/12/11 – Still waiting for integration
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that President Obama has done a better job than his predecessors in attempting to bring some diversity to the judges who serve in the federal judiciary. Senate ultra-conservatives continue to stymie several worthy and highly-rated appointees, but at least the President is (as in so many other areas) trying. read full story

10/10/11 – Federal Appellate Judges: Gender and Race Stats
The most under-represented groups among the 162 active federal appellate judges today are women, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. Whites and men are over-represented. read full story

10/9/11 – Obama is reshaping judiciary
President Barack Obama is using lifetime judicial appointments of minorities and women in Texas to bring diversity to the federal bench and reshape the face of the judiciary in the Lone Star State. read full story

10/7/11 – Andrew Blotky: Making the Court a Priority for Progressives
A new national conversation about the third branch and the Constitution is gaining the attention of more Americans every day, and it's one all of us should join. read full story

10/7/11 – Judge Shwartz nominated to the Third Circuit
President Obama has nominated Magistrate Judge Patty Shwartz to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. She would fill the “New Jersey seat” that was created when Judge Barry took senior status in June of this year. read full story

10/6/11 – More Women Judges on the Bench Needed, Says Advocate Greenberger
Though four of the six federal judges confirmed this week by the U.S. Senate were women, advocates for women in the legal field are saying there's still a long way to go before women will have gained their rightful role in the federal judiciary. read full story

10/5/11 – Education, strong work ethic key to success
Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos is exhibit A. The youngest of six, raised by parents who immigrated from Mexico, she was the first in her family to pursue a college degree. The Port Lavaca native was appointed this summer to the federal bench in the Corpus Christi Division of the U.S. Southern District of Texas. read full story

10/4/11 – Women on the Federal Courts: An Update
When our federal courts are diverse, they are more reflective of the diverse population of this nation. When our courts are diverse, people around the country may have more confidence that the court understands the real-world implications of its rulings. read full story

10/4/11 – Even Lindsey Graham’s Pick for the Federal Bench Waited Nearly Half a Year for Confirmation
Apparently, the Senate GOP’s efforts to delay and obstruct President Obama’s nominees are so widespread they even rub off on Republican picks for the bench. read full story

10/4/11 – Failure to approve judges causes crisis
The lights are on at the new federal courthouse in Tuscaloosa and the first cases are set to be heard there before the end of the month. We are fortunate not only to have a wonderful new facility, but also to have a judge to preside there. read full story

10/4/11 – Michelle Obama Is Right
In the next election, the American people will get to decide whether they want judges who have promised to to apply the text and original meaning of the Constitution, or whether they want judges who decide cases on the basis of “empathy” for parties identified for preferred status by the president. read full story

10/2/11 – Jonathan Riskind: Maine needs action on judgeship
It's too bad that what should be a slam-dunk nomination to promptly fill a seat that's critical to Maine's legal community has the potential to become a problem vacancy. read full story

10/2/11 – The other federal crisis
The deterioration of the federal judiciary because of partisan politics is inexcusable. read full story

10/2/11 – No reason for delayed judicial appointments
Foot-dragging on federal judicial appointments in Mississippi has become the norm during the Obama administration. read full story

10/2/11 – Senate GOP obstructs judicial nominations
The principle of an independent judiciary remains very much in jeopardy in Washington. Senate Republicans continue to stall Obama's appointments, even in the absence of a substantive reason. read full story

9/30/11 – Time to end delays on U.S. judicial nominees
The White House needs to get on with the process of nominating qualified judges to fill vacant benches. Senators need to fulfill their obligations to give those nominees an up or down vote in a timely fashion. read full story

9/30/11 – Senate slow to address backlog of federal judge nominations
The Senate will chip away at a backlog of federal judicial vacancies Monday evening with the likely approval of six nominees who aren’t considered controversial. read full story

9/30/11 – “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
Legislation is pending in the Senate and House to help reduce backlogs in the nation’s district and circuit courts by authorizing additional judgeships. read full story

9/29/11 – Sen. Johnson Defends Hold-up of 7th Circuit Nominee
Sen. Ron Johnson defended his decision to single-handedly hold up consideration of Victoria Nourse, a University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School professor, for the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which reviews federal cases from Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. read full story

9/28/11 – Federal judge nominee up for Senate vote
Senators scheduled lawyer Marina Marmolejo, nominated for a federal judgeship in Laredo, for a noncontroversial voice vote when lawmakers return next week. read full story

9/28/11 – Chen Toasted, Republicans Roasted
Edward Chen -- a jokester, former civil rights lawyer, karaoke singer, esteemed magistrate judge, penny-pincher and target of a fierce conservative opposition -- celebrated his induction to the U.S. District Court Tuesday evening. read full story

9/28/11 – Two-Thirds Of Americans Live In A Jurisdiction Caught In The Vacancy Crisis
As a new issue Center for America Progress issue brief shows, fully 200 million Americans now live in a jurisdiction facing a judicial emergency. read full story

9/27/11 – Sherman federal bench: still vacant after all these years
The Eastern District of Texas bench has been vacant since October 2006, when U.S. District Judge Paul Brown of Sherman retired. A spokesman for Sen. Cornyn, says the senator has not yet made a recommendation to President Barack Obama for the Sherman bench. A representative for Sen. Hutchison could not immediately provide comment. read full story

9/26/11 – Obama strength? Reshaping the judiciary
The president's greatest accomplishment, which he ought to mention in every speech to his core supporters, is what he has done to reshape the federal judiciary. read full story

9/24/11 – An update on federal judicial vacancies
An ACS report suggests that judicial vacancies present a growing problem. Much of the media coverage focuses on apportioning blame, but perhaps a more fruitful discussion would focus on process design. read full story

9/22/11 – Judicial change you can believe in
The Obama administration changed the federal judiciary and broke down barriers by increasing diversity in the federal courts … change we all can believe in. read full story

9/21/11 – NAD Urges White House to Make Disability Part of Diversity in Judicial Nominations
The National Association of the Deaf joined the efforts of 104 other national and state-based disability rights organizations, law firms, and individuals, urging the White House to make disability part of its efforts to achieve diversity in judicial nominations. read full story

9/21/11 – Carl Tobias: Time to fill 92 lower court openings
The vacancies in ten percent of federal appeals and district court judgeships undermine fast, inexpensive and fair case resolution. Thus, President Obama must promptly nominate, and senators must expeditiously confirm, numerous talented judges. read full story

9/20/11 – Bipartisan Home-State Senator Pressure Could Ease Judicial Vacancy Crisis
Justice delayed has become justice denied, as continuing, unjustifiable Senate obstruction of consensus federal judicial nominees delays resolution of urgent health, safety, environmental, and other cases. read full story

9/19/11 – Chief Justice John Roberts and Judicial Vacancies: An Avoidable Problem
Chief Justice John Roberts has publicly called for an end to Senate gridlock in judicial appointments. read full story

9/18/11 – Are there any qualified African American Males Amongst us?
Last week, the Senate confirmed the first African-American woman to sit on the 6thU.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Bernice Donald. Earlier, she was the first African-American woman elected as a judge in Tennessee, the first appointed as federal bankruptcy judge in the nation and first confirmed as a U.S. district judge in Tennessee. read full story

9/18/11 – Diversifying the court
While President Obama has been doing almost daily battle with a recalcitrant Republican-controlled House of Representatives, he’s had an easier time dealing with the Democrat-controlled Senate. And in one respect, that friendlier relationship has led to a quiet revolution in the makeup of the federal judiciary. read full story

9/18/11 – D.C. must act on empty positions
The Obama administration and Senate Republicans share in the blame for the glacial pace in filling federal judicial vacancies. Nationwide, there are about 90 vacant federal benches. Well into his third year in the White House, President Barack Obama has submitted nominees to fill only 60 percent of those posts. read full story

9/15/11 – President Barack Obama and the federal court
President Barack Obama, in two years, has nominated and gotten approved a higher percentage of non-White federal judges than any previous president of the United States. read full story

9/14/11 – Unprecedented Diversity of Judicial Nominees; Unprecedented Obstruction
President Obama’s nominees to the federal bench demonstrate his concerted effort to increase the diversity of the federal judiciary. read full story

9/13/11 – On Judicial Nominees, Sen. Coburn’s Crusade Goes Interstate
For nearly eight months now, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has prevented the good citizens of the state of Oklahoma from getting the services they need and deserve from the federal courts of their state. read full story

9/13/11 – Obama Historically Nominates Abundance of Women and Minorities to the Judiciary: Will the GOP Block Such Incredible Strides?
Obama made history when he was elected to be the first black president, and now he is taking historic measures to further diversify the judiciary, creating a ruling body that responds better to all its constituents and signifying a push towards racial equality. read full story

9/13/11 – Obama’s push for diversity on the bench leads surge in female and minority judges – with only one in four appointees white males
Barack Obama is making his mark on the U.S. federal judiciary by pushing through an unprecedented diversification of the system. read full story

9/13/11 – Report: Obama’s judges more diverse
President Barack Obama is the first president who has not picked a majority of white males for the judiciary at this point in his term, according to a new report. read full story

9/13/11 – Obama Is First President Whose Judicial Picks Aren’t Mostly White Males
President Obama has set a record based on the diversity of his judicial nominees. read full story

9/12/11 – For Senator, Law Dean’s Specialty a Barrier to Judgeship
Janet Levit is a Yale Law School graduate and dean of the University of Tulsa law school, but it was Sen. Tom Coburn’s concern about her background in international law that blocked her nomination to a federal appeals court. read full story

9/12/11 – Senator Reportedly Blocked Law Dean for 10th Circuit Because of International Law Background
An Oklahoma senator reportedly blocked the University of Tulsa’s law dean for a federal appellate nomination because she has a background in international law. read full story

9/12/11 – Was Dean Janet Levit’s Nomination Blocked Due to Her Views on International Law?
Apparently, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is blocking the nomination of Dean Janet Levit, of University of Tulsa Law School, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. read full story

9/12/11 – Once again, Tom Coburn feeds the judicial vacancy system in his state
Coburn is one of the leading proponents of a paranoid fantasy that claims that activist judges are on the cusp of replacing American law with some kind of international legal new world order, but his decision to block Levit is bizarre even by Coburn’s standards. read full story

9/12/11 – Are judicial nomination battles damaging our democracy?
A delay in confirming judges for these lower federal courts means that the business of justice is slowed. A court with two or three vacancies simply cannot meet the demand with the efficiency the parties deserve and that the rules and procedures mandate. read full story

9/7/11 – Critical Period Looms for Obama’s Judicial Nominees
President Obama faces a crucial period for winning confirmation of judicial nominees in upcoming months, as about 90 U.S. judgeships are vacant and workloads are mounting for sitting judges. read full story

9/6/11 – Republican Candidate Should Target Obama’s Judges, Abortion
When it comes to the 2012 presidential election, one conservative legal scholar has some advice for the eventual Republican nominee: Target President Barack Obama on his pro-abortion judges and the Supreme Court. read full story

9/6/11 – Don’t Exclude Academics From the Federal Judiciary
Shouldn't we want our federal judiciary to consist of an intellectual powerhouse? Those judicial authorities that are best equipped to interpret and defend our beloved Constitution are no lightweights. read full story

9/6/11 – Goodwin H. Liu Confirmed to California Supreme Court: A Lesson for the Country
August 31 was a good day for all those who care about justice, and an object lesson for the U.S. Senate. The California state Commission on Judicial Appointments unanimously voted to confirm Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu as an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court. read full story

9/6/11 – Senate, Get Back to Work: Vote on 20 Judges in September
The need for justice doesn’t take a break. So it’s time for the Senate to do its job once it gets back to work – a good place to start would be voting on all 20 pending judicial nominees right away. read full story

9/6/11 – Transcription Error Nearly Trips Up Judicial Nominee
A nominee for a federal appeals court has found out the hard way how much trouble an error in a transcript can cause. read full story

9/4/11 – Empty federal judicial benches pose crisis
The Senate's constitutional duty to advise and consent on nominations merely requires them to conduct an up or down vote. The committee's chairman, Patrick Leahy, recently noted that the Senate could have confirmed all 20 of these nominees within an hour. But the Senate is instead holding the judiciary hostage, and this cannot be tolerated in a functioning democracy of checks and balances. read full story

9/4/11 – Call truce for Florida choice
The partisan dysfunction in Washington hampering the economy has adversely affected the federal court system for years. One recent nomination, however, should be an exception. read full story

9/4/11 – More vacancies must be filled on Miami’s federal bench
The nomination of Miami federal Judge Adalberto Jordan to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta will create yet another opening on the federal bench in South Florida. read full story

9/4/11 – Call truce for Florida choice
The partisan dysfunction in Washington hampering the economy has adversely affected the federal court system for years. One recent nomination, however, should be an exception. read full story

9/2/11 – 2012 GOP Candidates: Where Do They Stand On Women’s Health Issues?
The president of the United States wields a great deal of power over reproductive freedom and choice through judicial nominations. read full story

9/1/11 – After Blocking A Judicial Nominee To Arizona District Court, McCain Falsely Claims The Nomination Was Never Made
McCain is offering a demonstrably false explanation of why Marquez’ nomination is not moving forward. read full story

8/31/11 – Will Obama push for judicial confirmations this fall?
When the Senate returns next week, they are scheduled to – finally – take up the nomination of Bernice Bouie Donald for the 6th Circuit Appeals Court. That’s good. But even if she wins cloture and is confirmed that will still leave more than 90 judicial openings, over a third of which are classified as judicial emergencies. Barack Obama has a lot on his plate, but he should really add a major push to clear up the logjam this fall. read full story

8/30/11 – It’s amazing Ginsburg is even on the bench
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg believes her nomination would probably be defeated if it came up today. She’s correct. read full story

8/30/11 – Justice Ginsburg: If I Were Nominated Today, My Women’s Rights Work For The ACLU Would Probably Disqualify Me
In a speech yesterday at Southern Methodist University law school, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg offered a grim assessment of the judicial confirmations process. read full story

8/29/11 – Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaks at SMU
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Monday that the confirmation process has become much more partisan and that she probably never would have made it to the high court under the current climate read full story

8/29/11 – Report: Caseloads declining in Western Virginia federal courts, bucking national trend
The number of cases in Western Virginia's federal courts has fallen every year but one since 2002, raising the possibility that future judicial vacancies could be left unfilled. read full story

8/29/11 – California Supreme Court appointee got state bar’s highest rating
UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu, appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to the California Supreme Court, received the state bar’s highest rating of “exceptionally well-qualified,” the court announced Monday. read full story

8/29/11 – Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaks at SMU
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Monday that the confirmation process has become much more partisan and that she probably never would have made it to the high court under the current climate. read full story

8/26/11 – Filling of vacant 10th Circuit seat is long overdue
It was December 2009 when Robert Henry announced he was leaving his post on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver to become president of Oklahoma City University. Twenty months later, that seat on the court remains vacant. read full story

8/24/11 – Nomination for Federal Circuit Required Persistence
A recent nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit endured multiple White House interviews during a two-and-a-half-year period before he was chosen, according to a Senate questionnaire the nominee filled out. read full story

8/24/11 – Dear Mr. President: Make a recess appointment right now!
Republicans in the House of Representatives are currently attempting to prevent Barack Obama from making recess appointments, contrary to the spirit of the Constitution — the same Constitution that they read on the House floor at the beginning of the 112th Congress. read full story

8/23/11 – LeMieux Forgot Voting To Confirm Judge
When asked about his decision to buck the GOP attempts to block the nomination of Thomas I. Vanaskie, LeMieux said that he did not remember the vote. read full story

8/22/11 – Judicial games
Just before they left town for their August recess, senators confirmed four of President Obama's judicial nominees. The disappointing news is that they left 20 perfectly qualified nominees languishing on the floor without a vote. read full story

8/22/11 – Senators McCain And Kyl Are Back To Obstructing Judges In One Of The Most Overloaded Courts In The Country
McCain and Kyl are depriving their constituents of a desperately needed public servant without even gaining much of anything ideologically in return. read full story

8/22/11 – Republican Obstruction Delays Justice, Diversity on Federal Bench
A minority of U.S. senators has blocked more nominations to federal judgeships by President Obama than any other president—even though each of the 155 nominees has been rated as highly qualified or qualified by the American Bar Association (ABA). read full story

8/19/11 – White House Hits Senate Delays on Judicial Nominees
The White House has joined in criticizing the Senate for failing to vote on 20 pending judicial nominees before packing bags for an August recess, and it highlighted statements calling for a swifter confirmation process. read full story

8/19/11 – Crisis on the courts
As the Senate wrapped up business before its August break, magnanimous Republicans graciously allowed the chamber to briefly function, approving four of President Obama’s judicial nominees. Senate Democrats hoped to move on 20 other judges — all of whom enjoyed bipartisan support in the Judiciary Committee — but the GOP Senate minority refused. All of those 20 were qualified jurists, but Republicans didn’t care. read full story

8/18/11 – INFOGRAPHIC: Record Judicial Diversity, Record Judicial Delays
Creating a judicial pool for the 21st Century, one with intellect, fair-mindedness and integrity that resembles the nation that it serves, is a top priority for President Obama and his administration. read full story

8/18/11 – Restore the president’s appointment power
The Senate confirmation process, which has become exponentially more difficult in recent years, has reached new lows for the nominees of Obama. read full story

8/18/11 – Judicial Nominees Disclose Finances
Several of President Barack Obama's recent nominees for the federal judiciary have reported a household net worth of at least seven figures, according to disclosure reports filed with the Senate Judiciary Committee. read full story

8/18/11 – Judge Mary Schroeder Talks About Judicial Appointments and Women’s Rights
Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Mary Schroeder has seen a lot of changes in the last three decades. The court has become more diverse and the circuit has taken on some of the county's most important social issues. read full story

8/17/11 – New Blood at Federal Circuit
A flurry of new judges and nominees may change the playing field for patent cases at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. read full story

8/17/11 – OTHER OPINION: JUDGES
The Senate has confirmed just 35 Obama judicial nominees this year — with only three for the courts of appeals. The responsibility for lingering vacancies now lies primarily with Capitol Hill. read full story

8/16/11 – Goodwin Liu, President Obama, and Judicial Diversity
In addition to straining our judicial infrastructure, Republicans' stone-walling of administration appointments carries with it an undertone of resistance to demographic change. read full story

8/16/11 – Lawmakers’ destructive gamesmanship with judicial nominees
The gamesmanship is not only frustrating but also destructive. The lives of nominees and their families are put on hold. Cases grind to a halt and expenses for litigants soar as even relatively simple matters take an inordinate amount of time to resolve. The legitimacy of the courts is undermined. read full story

8/15/11 – Building a legacy
Of the 97 nominees for federal judgeships confirmed so far under his administration, nearly half (46) are women— another record. President Obama has nominated more ethnic minorities (African Americans, Latinos and Asians) to federal judgeships than any other president, and of the three openly gay judges he has nominated to the federal bench, one already has been confirmed. read full story

8/15/11 – Editorial: America is not monolithic
A president's longest-lasting legacy can be the choice of federal judge nominees, who will shape American values and guidelines for decades to come. read full story

8/15/11 – House GOP can’t block recess appointments
Obama should recess-appoint a substantial number of nominees during the next series of Senate breaks, not only to fill important offices, but also to re-establish constitutional order. read full story

8/14/11 – Will Obama’s Judicial Nominees Be Delayed or Denied Justice?
The president is diligently nominating persons. Our legislative branch is bent on stalling on the nominees, like a car stuck in neutral. And the judiciary branch is caught between a rock and a hard place with overworked and burdensome dockets. read full story

8/14/11 – Take action on judicial nominees
As the pages of the calendar turn, the risk that these judicial nominations will get caught up in election-year politics increases. Republicans will have a greater incentive to stall on confirmations if they believe the 2012 election will create a GOP majority in the Senate or put a Republican in the White House. read full story

8/12/11 – A closer look at confirmed federal judges
Earlier this week, I cited with disgust the Senate's failure to confirm 20 judicial nominees whose candidacies already have been endorsed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. read full story

8/12/11 – Where are all the young liberal judges?
Obama, has yet to get a single appellate court judge under 45 appointed to the appellate courts. read full story

8/12/11 – The GOP Plan To Obstruct Judicial Nominations
Like so many other issues it remains incomprehensible why Obama and Senate Democrats aren't more aggressive in pushing this process forward. read full story

8/11/11 – Obama Has Appointed Zero Confirmed Appellate Judges Under Age 45
One of the biggest losses in the Goodwin Liu nomination fight was that he was a rare young progressive nominated to an appellate court. read full story

8/11/11 – GOP blocking larger percentage of Obama judicial nominees than any president in history
And it's not just judges. The GOP is filibustering left and right on administration appointees across the baord. read full story

8/11/11 – Women in the Federal Judiciary: Still A Long Way to Go
When women are fairly represented on our federal courts, those courts are more reflective of the diverse population of this nation. When women are fairly represented on the federal bench, women, and men, may have more confidence that the court understands the real-world implications of its rulings. read full story

8/11/11 – Obama must get tougher on GOP obstructionism
If Republican obstruction and administration indifference continue, the conservative domination of the federal bench could dramatically alter the country for years to come. read full story

8/11/11 – Ari Melber: Call The Senate Back Into Session And Make Republican Obstructionists Vote On Obama Nominees
Senator Reid and President Obama should call the Senate back in session now, in this hot August summer. They should refuse to adjourn until there are votes on all these nominees. read full story

8/10/11 – Adam Winkler: Romney’s pork barrel politics
The real importance of Romney's legal team is found in the man Romney chose as co-chair: Robert Bork. read full story

8/10/11 – Stat of the day: Judicial Nominations
Since 1981, Republicans have appointed 41 federal appellate judges under age 45 to the Democrats’ 10. Bush placed 13 judges in this group. Obama, so far, has zero. read full story

8/9/11 – President Obama Increases Judicial Diversity, Faces Confirmation Delays
President Obama, who has nominated more ethnic minorities and women for federal judge positions than any other president, has dramatically increased judicial diversity during his term, despite low rates of confirmation of his nominees. read full story

8/8/11 – ‘Senior status’ judges to keep on ruling
Two of Nevada's federal judges are taking "senior status" this year, but that doesn't mean they will be fading into the sunset. read full story

8/7/11 – The Congress we deserve
As the lawmakers jetted off for their holidays, there were 88 judicial vacancies left unfilled across the United States, including 69 on the federal trial bench where the bulk of federal law is handled. read full story

8/7/11 – 2012 put judicial diversity in spotlight
As the president and potential rivals bicker about the economy, there's another 2012 debate unfolding just below the national radar: how the next commander-in-chief will handle judicial nominations. read full story

8/7/11 – Vacancies must be filled quickly
After Roll's death, Arizona now has three district-court vacancies, and the judicial emergency has been officially declared. That means the statutory time limits for trying accused criminals can be suspended because of the severe shortage of judges. It means justice delayed. read full story

8/6/11 – For Obama, a Record on Diversity but Delays on Judicial Confirmations
President Obama made history when he nominated Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court. He did it again with his second nominee, Elena Kagan, raising the number of women on the nation’s highest court to three. read full story

8/6/11 – Ron Johnson represents Alabama better than Wisconsin
Technically, Johnson represents the Northern state of Wisconsin. But when it comes to his approach to judicial nominations, Ron Johnson is doing a much better job of representing Alabama. read full story

8/6/11 – Obstruction ceiling high
When Congress scurried home in the wake of the debt ceiling fiasco, the Senate left intact another perverse example of ineffective governance. read full story

8/5/11 – Editorial: Judicial nominee deserves a vote
Sen. Rob Johnson is wrong to hold up the nomination of Victoria Nourse to the federal appeals court that serves Wisconsin. read full story

8/4/11 – Jill Docking: Roberts, Moran fell flat on Steve Six nomination to bench
Jill Docking, who once headed the Kansas Board of Regents and was the Democratic Party’s 1996 nominee to the U.S. Senate, is out with a letter to the editor that contains tough words for Kansas’ two U.S. senators. read full story

8/4/11 – Partisan Obstruction On Federal Judges Continues
While early this year a bipartisan agreement was allegedly reached to speed up the process, Senate Republicans are continuing to block votes on non-controversial, qualified nominees. read full story

8/4/11 – Report: Obama Gets Good Grades for Diversifying Bench
President Obama is getting good marks for his nominations that have brought greater diversity to the federal bench. There’s also a cost, some observers say. read full story

8/4/11 – Even If All Judicial Vacancies Were Filled, We’d Still Need More Judges
From the moment President Obama took office, Senate Republicans waged an unprecedented campaign of obstruction against his judicial nominees. read full story

8/4/11 – The push for judicial diversity
The politics of selecting federal judges flared up yesterday, with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee trading heated words about whether lawmakers are moving too slowly on Obama’s nominations, even as he nominates the most diverse judges of any President. read full story

8/4/11 – Denver Post: Partisanship to blame for long delay in judge’s OK
It's about time. For several years now, Colorado's federal district court has not had a full bench of trial court judges, a situation attributable at least in part to the hyperpartisanship in Congress. read full story

8/4/11 – Obama gets high marks for diversifying the bench
When it comes to this White House and judges, there's a string of firsts. The first Hispanic on the Supreme Court. The first openly gay man on a federal district court. And the first women nominees who are Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese. read full story

8/3/11 – Blotky & Kendall: It’s Senate’s duty to confirm judges
While Washington has been consumed by the debt ceiling crisis, another serious crisis demands the attention of President Barack Obama and the Senate: the threat to justice by our overworked federal judiciary. read full story

8/2/11 – Time to Stop GOP Obstruction of Judicial Nominees
As the Senate prepares for a planned recess scheduled through Labor Day, it is incumbent upon Republicans to allow floor votes on the rapidly increasing number of judicial nominees who have been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee but whose nominations are still pending before the whole Senate. read full story

8/2/11 – The bench and a brick wall
As senators slithered out of town Tuesday for five — yes, five — weeks off, they left 20 judicial nominees twisting slowly on the Senate floor. That includes 16 who were unanimously approved by the Judiciary Committee. read full story

8/1/11 – Nan Aron: Federal judge deficit threatens to put justice in default
While Congress is consumed with a bitter fight over the federal budget deficit, the federal judge deficit continues to fester. read full story

8/1/11 – Judicial Symbolism
As the recent confirmation of one out gay judge is heralded, another waits longer than any other Obama judicial nominee just to have a hearing on his nomination. read full story

8/1/11 – Confirming Circuit Judges in the 112th Senate
Openings in more than ten percent of the federal appellate judgeships show that President Obama must expeditiously proffer nominees for all nineteen vacancies and the Senate ought to swiftly confirm them. read full story

8/1/11 – Male federal judges outnumber women three to one
To his credit, President Obama has significantly over-performed his predecessors in nominating diverse candidates to the federal bench. As of last May, 46 percent of Obama’s appointees have been women. read full story

7/30/11 – Johnson part of problem senator bemoans
Washington is broken alright, and it’s people like Johnson who are swinging the wrecking ball. Case in point: confirmation of Victoria Nourse for the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which reviews federal cases from Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. read full story

7/30/11 – Carl Tobias: Delaware District Court vacancies need filling fast
After the Senate returns from recess, President Barack Obama should promptly nominate, and the Senate must expeditiously confirm, lower court judges, so that the bench will be at full strength. read full story

7/30/11 – Justice Delayed
Nothing but the depth of the partisan divide could explain the lengthy delay that has denied U.S. District Judge Bernice Donald a confirmation vote on her nomination by President Barack Obama to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. read full story

7/30/11 – Herb Kohl: State overdue in filling judgeships
Federal judges serve society by protecting the legal and constitutional rights of individuals and impartially interpreting the law. It's up to your United States senators to give advice and consent to the president on nominees who will fill these critical lifetime appointments. read full story

7/30/11 – Ron Johnson: These nominees aren’t qualified
Unlike Obama and the Senate Democrats, I respect the will of Wisconsin's voters. That is why I have not submitted my blue slip to the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the judicial nominations of Louis Butler and Victoria Nourse. read full story

7/29/11 – Sen. Pat Roberts Blocks Judicial Nominee Steve Six Because Six Won’t Strike Down Health Reform
For weeks, Sens. Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Jerry Moran (R-VA) have blocked Tenth Circuit nominee Steve Six without deigning to explain why they were doing so. Yesterday, Roberts finally explained himself, citing Six’s unwillingness to rewrite the Constitution to advance the GOP’s legislative agenda. read full story

7/29/11 – Steve Six deserved better
Kansas Republican Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran may have succeeded Thursday in killing President Obama’s nomination of former Kansas Attorney General Steve Six to the 10th U.S. Circuit of Appeals. read full story

7/29/11 – ABA President to Senate Leaders: Confirm 20 Nominees Before August Recess
In a letter sent yesterday to Sens. Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell, American Bar Association President Stephen N. Zach calls attention to the remaining “long-standing vacancies on courts with staggering caseloads” that the Senate has failed to fill by confirming President Obama’s nominees. read full story

7/28/11 – ABA President urges majority and minority leaders to fill judicial vacancies
To effect lasting change, we also continue to urge the President and members of the Senate to act withcommon purpose to fill judicial vacancies promptly throughout this Congress so that thefederal courts will not be deprived of the judges they need to do their important work. read full story

7/28/11 – Federal Circuit judicial watch
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is a twelve member court, but that membership has been undergoing major changes over the past few years. read full story

7/28/11 – Attorney Loses Bid for the 10th Circuit. But Why?.
The Senate Judiciary Committee was due today to vote on the fate of Kansas lawyer Steve Six, the former attorney general of the state, who was nominated by President Obama to the 10th Circuit. read full story

7/26/11 – Obama should act to fill judicial vacancies
Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison have forwarded the names of two more jurists to the White House for consideration as nominees to fill empty federal judicial benches in Texas. President Barack Obama should accept the recommendations and move swiftly on the nominations. read full story

7/25/11 – Nominations obstacles for legal scholars
Law professors “have received a relatively chilly reception in Washington of late, at least when it comes to high-profile positions that require the blessing of the Senate." read full story

7/25/11 – Johnson part of problem senator bemoans
Washington is broken alright, and it’s people like Johnson who are swinging the wrecking ball. read full story

7/25/11 – Diversity comes to judiciary
Senate confirmation of the first openly gay judge last week could portend greater diversity on the federal bench, something President Barack Obama has made a priority. read full story

7/23/11 – Sen. Johnson only wants to have his say on Nourse nomination
Johnson's critics get the facts wrong and fail to appreciate the process of federal nominations generally and Wisconsin's selection method in particular. read full story

7/21/11 – Obama nominees and diversity on the bench
Following the Senate’s confirmation of J. Paul Oetken as the first openly gay male federal judge, President Barack Obama has announced another nomination that would add diversity to our courts. read full story

7/21/11 – Holding up judicial appointment an injudicious decision
I still like and respect U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and gladly would repeat all the tireless hours put in to help him win a U.S. Senate seat. He’s just unfairly blocking a nominee with no real judicial red flags for little other reason than procedural grounds. read full story

7/21/11 – Judicial vacancies are now higher than at beginning of the year
The judicial vacancy crisis is worsening, and Republican obstruction is returning. read full story

7/20/11 – Analyst: Native American Nominee ‘Twisting in the Wind’
Oklahoma’s congressional delegation has denounced Mikkanen’s nomination as “unacceptable” but not explained publicly why that’s the case. The White House hasn’t spent any political capital on advancing the nomination to the forefront of judicial nomination battles. read full story

7/20/11 – Confirmation of Gay Judge Belies Obama’s Lack of Nominating Success
After two and a half years of nominating struggles and partisan roadblocks, President Barack Obama was able to celebrate an important judicial landmark this week: The confirmation of the first-ever openly gay man to the federal bench. read full story

7/19/11 – Senate okays gay judge but Native Americans still need not apply
In the nation's history, only two Native Americans have ever been confirmed by the Senate for a job on the federal bench. read full story

7/19/11 – By and with the advice and consent of Ron Johnson
One minute Ron Johnson is saying nobody knows who Victoria Nourse is, and the next he's calling her "extreme." read full story

7/19/11 – Senate Easily Confirms Openly Gay Judicial Nominee
GOP opposition to efforts to diversify the federal bench, as the American Constitution Society has pointed out, has been particularly strenuous. read full story

7/19/11 – Two more out gay judicial nominees await confirmation votes
There are simply no good reasons why these nominees should not receive a swift and overwhelmingly favorable confirmation vote. Sadly, however, Senate Republicans are better than anyone at coming up with bad reasons. read full story

7/19/11 – Courts languish while Senate slow-walks nominees
Vacancies in more than 10 percent of the federal appeals court judgeships demonstrate that President Obama must swiftly propose nominees for all 18 openings, and the Senate must promptly confirm them. read full story

7/19/11 – How the game is played
The GOP practice, for the last twenty years or so, has been to play the "game" of politics in part by looking through the rule book for strategies that go beyond the norms of politics but are allowed under the literal reading of the rules. read full story

7/19/11 – Confirming Oetken
Oetken is the first openly gay judge to be confirmed to the bench. Eighteen years ago the first openly gay nominee to a Senate-confirmed position, Roberta Achtenberg, faced a filibuster and right-wing smear campaign. read full story

7/19/11 – Republicans playing debt-ceiling politics, peddle another excuse to ignore judicial vacancies, ACS’s Fredrickson says
Yesterday's confirmation of J. Paul Oetken as a U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York, as noted here, continued the Senate’s snail’s pace for filing vacancies that are severely undercutting the ability of federal courts to function. read full story

7/19/11 – Step aside, Senator
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson is single-handedly blocking the nomination of a University of Wisconsin law professor to the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals - a nominee who though likely no ideological soul mate of the freshman senator appears to be well-qualified and who was nominated before Johnson even took office. read full story

7/18/11 – In a ‘quiet moment,’ gay judge makes history
The remarkable thing about what happened on the Senate floor Monday night was that it was utterly unremarkable. The matter under consideration – the nomination of the first openly gay man to serve on the federal bench – would at one time have been a flashpoint in the culture wars. read full story

7/18/11 – Six vote would mark senators as RINOs
Kansans are still waiting to hear more from Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran about why they are putting party over geography in opposing President Obama’s nomination of former Kansas Attorney General Steve Six to join the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Meanwhile, Fort Hays State University political scientist Chapman Rackaway has a theory: a vote for Six would mark them as RINOs (Republicans in name only). read full story

7/15/11 – Only one federal judge has been confirmed in the last month
On June 21, the Senate confirmed Judge Michael Simon to a federal judgeship in Oregon. Simon is now the only judge to be confirmed in the last month. read full story

7/14/11 – The other, unseen crisis
The debt limit negotiations aren’t the only case of dysfunction breaking out in Washington. There’s another, unseen crisis underway: Republican obstruction on judicial nominations has stepped up to record levels again. read full story

7/14/11 – Leahy Deplores Judicial Vacancy ‘Crisis’
The Senate’s top Democrat on judicial matters has again deplored a “crisis” in vacancies on the federal bench. read full story

7/12/11 – Nuffer federal bench nomination part of Obama appointee trend
If U.S. Magistrate David Nuffer becomes Utah’s newest federal judge, his path to a lifetime appointment of deciding disputes will be an increasingly common one: magistrates are more often being appointed to federal judgeships. read full story

7/10/11 – Senate action needed on Michael Green judicial nomination
Facing default on the nation's mountainous debt that could tailspin into an international financial crisis, and other urgent matters, the U.S. Senate has a full plate. It should lighten its load and move swiftly to approve Michael Green as a federal district judge in Rochester. read full story

7/8/11 – Explanation needed
Used to be politicians would support their home-state colleagues, even if they were of a different political party, unless there was a good reason not to. Not so with Kansas Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran, who have come out against the nomination of former Kansas Attorney General Steve Six for the federal appeals court. read full story

7/8/11 – Whelling Dems issue first of targeted blasts
Dems issued a release today urging Sen. Mark Kirk to "go even farther in the spirit of bipartisanship" with his federal judicial recommendation of John Tharp, a partner at Mayer Brown. The release, which noted Tharp and his firm's contributions to Kirk's campaigns, lacked mention of Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin's four recommendations - two of which have made contributions to his campaigns. read full story

7/7/11 – Judge Cudahy says troubled judicial nomination process could produce a bench full of octogenarians
With the way the Senate is confirming judges, which is extremely slow due to Republican obstructionism, the federal bench workload will soon be handled primarily by octogenarians, said U.S. Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit Judge Richard D. Cudahy, one of the nation’s leading appellate judges. read full story

7/6/11 – Our view: Good judges

read full story

7/4/11 – A Quick Fix For Senate’s Broken Confirmation Process
Senate confirmation dysfunction deepens each month. In times of unprecedented economic uncertainty, important financial, judicial, trade, and energy positions remain unfilled. Federal court jurisdictions across the nation report “judicial vacancy emergencies.” read full story

7/2/11 – Analysis: White House snubs Texas Democrats on U.S. attorney picks
Texas Democrats frustrated with the slow pace of judicial nominations claim the White House added insult to injury this week, reversing course on an earlier agreement to give the Lone State congressional delegation more say in the process. read full story

7/2/11 – Move swiftly to fill federal court vacancies

read full story

7/2/11 – Texas Democrats rap Obama on judicial posts

read full story

7/1/11 – Please stay on the line
More than two and a half years after Obama took office, the federal government still has a huge number of vacancies. read full story

6/30/11 – Elizabeth Warren Appointment Dangles As Democrats Duck Recess Fight With Republicans
In a bid to stop President Obama from making Senate-circumventing appointments while Congress is out -- most notably Consumer Financial Protection Bureau architect Elizabeth Warren -- House Speaker John Boehner is banning his members -- and the Senate -- from going on holiday. read full story

6/29/11 – Slow Motions: ABA Urges Cooperation Between Branches to Fill Federal Judicial Vacancies
Over the past two years, the rate of unfilled judgeships in the federal district and appellate courts has hovered around 10 percent. That persistently high vacancy rate is a subject of mounting concern to the ABA, which views a fully operating federal bench as crucial to preserving the quality and vitality of the judiciary and the balance between the three branches of government. read full story

6/29/11 – Editorial: The Secret Holds

read full story

6/28/11 – Blocking confirmations: Senate stalls on filling posts
It's long since become routine for senators, sometimes a single senator, to place a secret hold, or use parliamentary maneuvers to prevent confirmation votes for judges, Cabinet officials and other presidential nominees. read full story

6/28/11 – Fill the lower federal courts
The president must promptly suggest, and the Senate must expeditiously confirm, lower court nominees, so that the bench will be at full strength. read full story

6/26/11 – Kansas’ cowardly Senators say nothing but ‘no’

read full story

6/23/11 – Reasons for someone to take the Senate to court
Confirming federal judges — and lots of other presidential appointments — is no longer considered a responsibility of the Senate. It’s now a chance to keep the president from acting like he’s president. read full story

6/23/11 – Explain stands on Six

read full story

6/22/11 – Pawlenty Makes Judges an Election Issue
Kudos to Governor Pawlenty for being the first out of the gate to stress the importance of judicial appointments. read full story

6/22/11 – Checked, not balanced
The Obama administration is quickly gaining a reputation for its empty desks. Senior posts sit empty, while the federal judiciary—where vacancies are filled by the president and confirmed by the Senate—are increasingly in a state known as “judicial emergency.” read full story

6/22/11 – Senate Republicans Now Obstructing Any Judicial Nominee They Don’t Unanimously Support
The idea that a nominee must please every single member of the judiciary committee before they can receive a timely floor vote is absurd — and it is an incredibly high bar to clear. read full story

6/21/11 – Questioning our judges
The American experience of Senate confirmation hearings following presidential nominations for Supreme Court appointments leads some to believe that the political review of court appointees is destructive of the idea of judicial neutrality. read full story

6/21/11 – Filling the Fourth Circuit Vacancies
Allegations and recriminations, partisan division, and incessant paybacks have accompanied the appeals court appointments process for decades. read full story

6/20/11 – PD Editorial: Living in Sen. Hruska’s America
Many judicial nominees aren't being held up by fears of mediocrity but rather because their intellect and political potential are recognized by partisan foes. It's a wonder that capable people are willing to endure a slow and costly process to serve their government. read full story

6/17/11 – Top State Dept. Lawyer Defends Goodwin Liu Nomination
The U.S. State Department's top lawyer today defended the Obama administration's nomination of Goodwin Liu for an appeals court post, questioning what he called a "disorienting" political environment. read full story

6/16/11 – No good reason for not backing Six
It was noteworthy that Kansas GOP Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran released nearly identical statements Wednesday evening saying that they would not support the nomination of former Kansas Attorney General Steve Six to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. read full story

6/15/11 – No surprise that Kline is no Six supporter
In a column for RenewAmerica, former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline joined the anti-abortion media’s crusade against President Obama’s nomination of Steve Six to the federal bench. read full story

6/15/11 – The Sebelius, Six, abortion deception
Six's willingness to sue a judge, sue a prosecutor, obtain secret ex parte orders to silence witnesses in order to protect a major political player; and his deception of the Senate regarding such efforts — clearly disqualify him for consideration to the federal bench. read full story

6/14/11 – The bad way to pick judges
The defeat of a California law professor for a seat on the federal appeals court in the West is instructive about how politics is distorting the understanding of the Founding Fathers about America's judiciary read full story

6/14/11 – Administration signals filling federal bench vacancies to remain a top priority
The incoming White House counsel has signaled that the Obama administration will continue to make “filling empty judge seats” a “top priority,” writes Jennifer Bendery for The Huffington Post. read full story

6/14/11 – Hirose: Senators’ Statements Exploit Racial Fears
Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, gave a speech on the floor disagreeing with Liu on the proper balance between free enterprise and regulation. In his commentary, Grassley asked, “Does [Liu] think we are the Communist-run China? read full story

6/10/11 – No federal judges have been confirmed for the last four weeks
The Senate has confirmed no judges for the last four weeks, which means that judges are once again retiring faster than new ones are being confirmed. read full story

6/10/11 – Attention Harry Reid: Time to go nuclear on GOP obstructionism
It’s time — long past time — for Harry Reid and Senate Democrats to start fighting back against filibusters on executive branch nominations. It’s time to threaten to go nuclear. read full story

6/9/11 – Goodwin’s withdrawal is a loss for Americans
Taiwanese American Goodwin Liu, 40, withdrew from consideration for a judicial seat on the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on May 25. It came after a filibuster of his nomination in the Senate on May 19. read full story

6/9/11 – Filling federal judgeships, a slow process
Susan Hickey of El Dorado got some questions about her experience but generally gentle handling in an appearance yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will eventually vote on her nomination by the president as a federal district judge. read full story

6/9/11 – Obama’s Law
Obama made impromptu remarks aboard Air Force One, suggesting that the Roberts Court’s jurisprudence should be understood as a type of conservative judicial activism that paralleled the liberal judicial activism of an earlier era. read full story

6/9/11 – Fill the vacancies on the federal bench
Federal courts are experiencing a judicial vacancy crisis of historic proportion. More than 10 percent of federal judgeships are now vacant. read full story

6/8/11 – All sides are at fault for lack of confirmations
The decision by Peter Diamond to withdraw his nomination for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board is yet another sign that the nomination and confirmation process is seriously out of whack. read full story

6/8/11 – One good Obama judicial nominee
Here's one Obama judicial nominee that Republicans should have no problem supporting quickly for confirmation: Jesse Furman. read full story

6/8/11 – Broken system continues to enable GOP obstructionism
Congress appears set to approve a deal that would exempt more than 200 executive branch nominees from Senate confirmation, which would finally allow movement on Obama nominations. read full story

6/8/11 – Confirmed: The nomination process is broken
Confirmations are political. This is not news. The news is that they've never moved slower. read full story

6/8/11 – Obstructionism targets minority judicial selections, ACS’s Fredrickson says
President Obama’s judicial selections have faced unprecedented obstruction in the Senate, but it is the president’s minority nominees who have been the primary victims of the obstructionism, ACS Executive Director Caroline Fredrickson says. read full story

6/8/11 – Women in the federal judiciary: An update
It’s more important than ever to keep the numbers and percentages of female judicial nominees high, and to press the Senate to confirm the women who have been nominated to the bench. read full story

6/7/11 – Why can’t Obama get his own nominees approved?
The problem may have more to do with the president and his priorities than with GOP obstructionism. read full story

6/6/11 – The pace of federal judicial confirmations
If both sides would stress more the legal qualifications, decisional abilities, and writing skills of nominees then we the public and the Court might be better served. read full story

6/6/11 – Appointments still in limbo
The news on the judicial nominations front has been relatively, if very tentatively, good this year — yes, Goodwin Liu, nominated for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, was defeated by filibuster, but the total number of vacancies has finally been (slightly) dropping. read full story

6/6/11 – Blocked for the politics of it
Republicans in the governing body are doing everything possible to avoid having any person who would have “Appointed by President Obama” in their history anywhere in the government. read full story

6/6/11 – “As I plan to inform the White House”
That club of good nominees hung out to dry by this White House is growing longer. read full story

6/6/11 – The fate of Peter Diamond; Or, why no one will ever be confirmed, ever
Goodwin Liu, Elizabeth Warren, Peter Diamond -- all of them unconfirmable in a Senate run by Democrats, all because Republicans have the power, and use the power, to hold up anyone they damn well please. read full story

6/6/11 – Did Fed nominee Diamond get ‘Borked’?
Economists can suddenly empathize with judges: they both know what if feels like to become the target of partisan politics. read full story

6/3/11 – Yawn — Judicial crisis rolls on
All those empty federal judicial seats keep piling up, leading to new and interesting ways to restate the same dismal state of affairs. read full story

6/2/11 – Hypocrisy on the right: Blocking a qualified judicial nominee
The legacy of right-wing activism in the federal judiciary is that civil rights, reproductive rights, consumer rights, privacy and many other liberties and protections are at risk. read full story

6/2/11 – Senate keeps women and minorities off of federal benches
Since President Obama took office, every district court nominee with party-line opposition from Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans has been a woman or person of color. read full story

6/2/11 – Senate confirmed a smaller percentage of Obama’s judges than any other President in history
Although Obama’s nominees are the most diverse in American history, every district court nominee with unanimous Republican opposition in the Senate Judiciary Committee was a woman or person of color. read full story

6/2/11 – Arizona has a caseload problem; so where are the new judges?
At the time of Judge Roll’s death, Sens. Jon Kyl and John McCain, both Republicans, had yet to submit any names to the White House. And four months later, there are few public signs of progress. read full story

6/2/11 – Liu withdrawal shows no room for judicial progress
The unfortunate message sent by Senate conservatives is clear: There is no longer room for those who advocate progress on the federal bench. read full story

6/1/11 – Here come the judges – Obama moves to the benches
Some of the empty seats on the bench in federal courthouses across the United States may finally be getting filled, addressing an issue the White House calls a "crisis" and which has wide-ranging ramifications. read full story

6/1/11 – GOP obstructionism reaches new heights
To fill these judicial vacancies, the Obama administration must move aggressively to challenge GOP obstructionism, which is something they've been slow to do. read full story

6/1/11 – The Goodwin Liu nomination: Impaired Judgment
The Senate's vote on Liu sends a clear message to any of the nation's brightest constitutional thinkers who hope to someday be able to serve on the federal bench: stop talking. read full story

5/31/11 – Unleashing “Senator” Biden: What happened to judicial appointments, the war powers resolution
There are few public officials with as deep a knowledge as Biden of how to choose judicial nominees and how to navigate the confirmation process. read full story

5/31/11 – Why is the GOP keeping women and people of color off the bench
A review of the confirmation process faced by President Obama’s judicial nominees makes clear that there is a correlation between a nominee’s sex, race and ethnicity and how he or she is treated by the Senate’s Republican minority. read full story

5/30/11 – Goodwin’s Law
Goodwin Liu was the "anti-Clarence Thomas" -- just as young but brilliant and progressive -- and everyone knew it.  The story of why he was blocked from the federal appellate bench demands our attention. read full story

5/30/11 – University of Minnesota Law Professor Richard Painter: Give all judicial nominees a vote

read full story

5/29/11 – Confirmation game
The tension between politics and judicial impartiality is on stark display during recent U.S. Senate confirmation hearings. read full story

5/29/11 – Senators Inouye & Boxer: Goodwin Liu’s nomination should have been OK’d
When we reject a nominee of this caliber, we weaken America's legal system. read full story

5/28/11 – Denver Post Editorial: So much for the Gang of 14 Truce

read full story

5/27/11 – Mike Green confirmation: What I heard
The tone of Tuesday’s nomination hearing has many wondering if Green’s confirmation is as sure a thing as we all once thought. read full story

5/27/11 – Confirming judges: Gang warfare
Still, the GOP's abandonment of its previous stand invites scorn. read full story

5/27/11 – Let My Judges Go!
On the merits, Liu should have been appointed, but beyond that, this filibuster is a symptom of much deeper problems with the way we nominate and appoint judges. read full story

5/27/11 – Politics and the bench
In defying the bipartisan agreement, GOP senators risk re-politicizing and paralyzing the judicial selection process. read full story

5/27/11 – Lisa Murkowski shows independent streak
Knowing she holds a valuable vote, Republican leaders are giving Murkowski space but watching her closely — unsure whether she will eventually side with Democrats when the major fights come to a head. read full story

5/26/11 – Not Getting Any Younger
Had Liu been 59 years old, instead of 39, he would not have been filibustered. read full story

5/26/11 – To leave a liberal legacy in the courts, Obama must imitate the GOP
While the GOP's obstructionism further demonstrates the hopeless logjam over the courts, Liu’s fate – he withdrew his nomination today – also highlights Mr. Obama’s own flawed approach to nominations. read full story

5/26/11 – Obama’s appeals judges average four years older than Bush’s
The four year gap between Obama’s average judge and Bush’s may not seem like a lot, but it is enough to significantly tilt the bench towards Republicans over time. read full story

5/26/11 – Here come the judges: At last, some relief for federal courts
The freeze in judicial nominations may finally be thawing. read full story

5/26/11 – Liu cites Ninth Circuit’s “desparate need for judges” in withdrawing nomination; ACS’s Fredrickson says Republicans abandoned principles for obstructionism
Goodwin Liu, nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, withdrew his nomination, citing the federal bench’s dire need for judges, after Republicans successfully blocked the nomination last week. read full story

5/26/11 – An Obama Judicial Nominee Gets Sick of Waiting
Liu pointed out that the appeals court has a lot of cases to get through, and it didn't look like he'd be getting to a confirmation vote any time soon. read full story

5/26/11 – GOP obstruction of Obama nominees has become the norm, not the exception
As long as the filibuster remains in place, and the structural incentives reward obstruction and discourage cooperation, nothing is going to change. read full story

5/26/11 – OUR VIEW: Filibustering judicial nominees was wrong with a Republican in the White House, and it’s wrong with a Democratic president.
Sessions, of course, can explain why he now believes it's sometimes OK to filibuster a judicial nominee. His shifting philosophy is philosophical, literally read full story

5/26/11 – GOP’s block of judicial nominee shows partisan hypocrisy
Some of the senators who filibustered this extraordinary nominee were the very ones who, in the past, decried the use of the filibuster to block confirmation of judicial nominees. read full story

5/25/11 – Goodwin Liu Withdraws
Liu was caricatured as a left-wing "radical" and "activist" although he had the unconditional backing of conservatives such as Kenneth Starr and Clint Bolick. read full story

5/24/11 – York: An eye-for-an-eye filibuster succeeds
If there's one place where what goes around comes around, it's the U.S. Senate. read full story

5/22/11 – N.C. judges get busy on 4th Circuit Court
For years, North Carolina had no judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, the final destination for nearly all the state's legal squabbles in federal court. Now, it has three. read full story

5/25/11 – Liu’s Filibuster and Constitutional Fidelity
The successful filibuster last week of President Obama's nomination of Goodwin Liu (Boalt Hall) to the Ninth Circuit was hardly based on a principled dispute about constitutional interpretation. read full story

5/25/11 – The Liu Debate and the Promise of New Textualism
One of the really striking things about Goodwin Liu’s confirmation debate in the United States Senate last week was the fact that there was almost nothing said by his Senate opponents about Liu’s testimony, under oath, at his two hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. read full story

5/24/11 – Idea of the day: Judicial nominees criticized unfairly
Yesterday, 52 percent of the Senate voted to allow professor Goodwin Liu’s nomination to a federal appeals court to move forward—which means that his nomination is effectively dead for the time being. read full story

5/23/11 – Too few bringing order to the courts

read full story

5/23/11 – Violating a principle on judicial nominations
Other Republican senators have pledged to not filibuster judicial nominees, yet they stood together and Thursday and did exactly that. read full story

5/23/11 – Judicial Filibusters: What Now?
Senate Republicans have filibustered Goodwin Liu’s nomination, and it’s silly to think that this won’t happen with virtually every Obama nominee, especially with a McConnell-led caucus. read full story

5/23/11 – Trashing of court nominees must end
It is a sad day for the courts, for bipartisanship in the Senate and for the nation. read full story

5/23/11 – Two new options for Goodwin Liu
If the administration really believe that Liu has to have some judicial experience before appointing him to the Supreme Court, there are a couple of other options. read full story

5/22/11 – District court expansion bill needs fast OK
Even during this time of fiscal restraint, Congress needs to move quickly to provide the new judgeships and then to approve the appointments to fill them once they are authorized. read full story

5/22/11 – Breaking faith
Senate Republicans voted to filibuster one of President Obama’s judicial nominees for holding liberal views--breaking a promise and kindling yet another row over a president’s right to appoint like-minded judges. read full story

5/21/11 – U.S. District Judge Polster: Federal judiciary is suffering from far too many vacancies
Unless and until the current system is fixed, the quality of justice in this country will suffer. read full story

5/21/11 – Senate’s shameful return to mass hypocrisy
Senate Republicans’ successful filibuster Thursday of the nomination of UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals marks a return to the days of mass hypocrisy in what is dubiously billed as “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” read full story

5/20/11 – More on Mazzone
Presidents have been allowed at least a vote on appointees who are thought to be relatively qualified. Perhaps we're in the process of transforming that expectation, just as the filibuster was transformed in the past several decades into an ordinary way of doing business. read full story

5/20/11 – Hypocrisy and worse on Liu
One of the "Gang of 14" senators who promised not to block judicial nominees from up-or-down votes except in "extraordinary circumstances", Sen. Collins voted yesterday to filibuster the nomination of Goodwin Liu. read full story

5/20/11 – Grassley’s Manzanar-like reaction to Goodwin Liu
Chuck Grassley’s backhanded big-government attacks, comparing him to a communist Chinese sympathizer, have NO place on the floor of the Senate. read full story

5/20/11 – Shame on GOP senators who blocked Goodwin Liu

read full story

5/20/11 – Give Obama an up-or-down vote on Goodwin Liu
 The Senate owes the president an up-or-down vote on his judicial nominees. read full story

5/20/11 – The battle over Goodwin Liu, and why I miss Robert Bork
 What if senators gave the president his constitutional due and confirmed well-qualified and ethically clean nominees who share his views on the law? read full story

5/20/11 – A Senate truce post-Goodwin Liu? Unlikely
It's probably worth asking, how can the Senate get past the cycle of retribution that makes it resemble the Appalachian feud the Hatfield and McCoys? read full story

5/20/11 – Judicial filibusters II
Republicans were able to block the nomination of Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the first time a Senate filibuster has derailed a judicial nominee of President Obama. read full story

5/20/11 – Don’t Speak: If you want to be a judge someday you better shut your mouth
Yesterday’s vote sends a very clear message to any of the nation’s brightest constitutional thinkers who hope to someday be able to write legal opinions interpreting the Constitution: stop talking. read full story

5/20/11 – Sen. Hatch votes ‘present’
Utah's Orrin Hatch tried to make a statement against the filibuster, but in a silly way: He voted "present." read full story

5/20/11 – Judicial Filibusters: Partisanship run amok
If anyone needs proof of how destructively polarized national politics has become, one need only consider yesterday's vote in the Senate on President Obama's nomination of Goodwin Liu. read full story

5/19/11 – Extraordinary Hypocrisy
It was a hall of mirrors of hypocrisy at Thursday's Senate vote on the nomination of Goodwin Liu to be a judge on the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals. read full story

5/19/11 – Further thoughts on Goodwin Liu vote
Rather than push a nominee whose fate will depend upon a few votes here and there, the President should look more broadly. read full story

5/19/11 – Playing hardball with Goodwin Liu, or the Gang of 14 deal implodes
The Republicans are back to playing hardball on judicial nominations. read full story

5/19/11 – Jason Mazzone is wrong
The Senate Republicans are committed to the proposition that they will do "whatever it takes" to deny President Obama any victories whatsoever. read full story

5/19/11 – Goodwin Liu and Supreme Court vacancies
Republican senators today showed that they have the organizational skills and the stomach to out-maneuver Democrats and keep judicial nominees from advancing to a final vote. read full story

5/19/11 – Berkeley Law faculty responds to Goodwin Liu Filibuster
UC Berkeley Law School Dean Christopher Edley and faculty members today expressed dismay at the U.S. Senate vote denying cloture on judicial nominee Goodwin Liu. read full story

5/19/11 – Liu nomination goes down–now what?
So now that Liu's nomination failed before the Senate, at the hands of Republicans who once argued filibusters of judicial nominees were unconstitutional, what are the options? read full story

5/19/11 – Goodwin Liu and the politics of personal pique
Conservative presidents are going to nominate conservative judges and liberal presidents are going to nominate liberal judges, and both sides should accept that. read full story

5/19/11 – GOP smears Chinese-American Goodwin Liu with Communist charge
In a speech on the Senate floor yesterday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) suggested that Liu wants to turn America into “Communist-run China.” read full story

5/19/11 – GOP effort to block Goodwin Liu is all about petty revenge
Republican Senators have decided that payback is an adequate reason for filibustering one of the president’s nominees to the bench. read full story

5/19/11 – Judges are political, and confirmation votes are political, too
The Senate GOP is wrong to block Liu because he is right about policy, not because his policy views should be shunted aside. read full story

5/19/11 – Confirm Goodwin Liu
 I have witnessed Liu’s ability to navigate the most challenging and complex legal issues with ease, considering the value and impact of an array of potential solutions. read full story

5/19/11 – Federal judgeships: Active scholars need not apply?
Does Goodwin Liu’s stalled nomination to the federal bench signal the end of judicial nominations for academics? read full story

5/19/11 – “I would never filibuster any President’s judicial nominee”
It’s worth noting what many of these same senators who filibustered Goodwin Liu used to say about this practice before there was a Democratic president. read full story

5/19/11 – Sen. Grassley accuses Asian-American judicial nominee of holding ‘communist’ Chinese worldview
Grassley’s rant against Liu — a widely-respected law professor at the University of California Berkeley — is just the latest example of the GOP’s increasingly bizarre attacks on this outstandingly qualified nominee. read full story

5/19/11 – 9th Circuit nominee Goodwin Liu deserves a vote
Goodwin Liu's nomination has unfairly languished for more than a year. The U.S. Senate should give him a straight up-or-down vote. read full story

5/18/11 – Dems pulling out all the stops for confirmation of Goodwin Liu
While there’s precedent for a so-called “controversial” nominee to get through this Senate, that doesn’t mean Liu will succeed. read full story

5/18/11 – Why conservatives are blocking Goodwin Liu
Liu’s confirmation battle is a symptom of a much larger problem — the GOP’s success in blocking Obama’s judicial nominations. read full story

5/18/11 – Senate vote on Liu this week — leading GOP senators have already said a filibuster would be wrong
The Senate will finally vote this week on the nomination of Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  But first, the Senate has to vote on whether to end debate on the nomination -- and have a vote. read full story

5/18/11 – Goodwin Liu deserves to serve on the Ninth Circuit Court
Professor Liu is an extremely well-qualified nominee who has the intellectual capacity, experience, temperament and integrity to be an excellent jurist. read full story

5/18/11 – How’s Obama doing on court vacancies?
 the Senate has confirmed 18 of Obama’s appeals court nominees. That compares with 23 of George W. Bush’s appeals court nominees confirmed at the same point in his first term as president. read full story

5/18/11 – At last: Senate to vote on Goodwin Liu
For those who have decried judicial filibusters in the past, this is beyond question a nominee who deserves that up-or-down vote. read full story

5/18/11 – Right-wing media attack Obama judicial nominee endorsed by Ken Starr, John Yoo, and others
The usual suspects in the right-wing media are rehashing their reasons for opposing Goodwin Liu. read full story

5/18/11 – Confirming Goodwin Liu
At a minimum, Goodwin Liu deserves the same up-or-down vote that any judicial nominee not presenting "extraordinary circumstances" warrants. read full story

5/18/11 – GOP sabotages itself by blocking Liu’s rise
Republicans appear to be opposing his nomination because he is too qualified, and might give Obama the chance to nominate the first Asian American to the U.S. Supreme Court. read full story

5/18/11 – Goodwin Liu deserves up-or-down vote in Senate

read full story

5/17/11 – Possible Liu cloture vote is a truth-telling contest for conservatives
Legal times reports that Ninth Circuit judicial nominee Goodwin Liu could finally receive a cloture vote this week after waiting more than a year for this preliminary vote. read full story

5/17/11 – Senators debate whether GCs can be judges
Yale University's deputy general counsel, Susan Carney, will join the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, after the Senate put aside concerns about her lack of recent litigation work and voted today for her confirmation. read full story

5/17/11 – The Dark Side: It is time to confirm Nourse to the 7th Circuit
The nomination of University of Wisconsin law professor Victoria Nourse to the 7th Circuit is unlikely to be approved by the U.S. Senate. Apparently, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson opposes the nomination, and therefore, the Senate Judiciary Committee will not even schedule a hearing on the nomination. read full story

5/16/11 – Local attorneys, judges say federal nominee up for the job
As Kalispell attorney Dana Christensen prepares to go before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee he will be navigating a politically delicate minefield. read full story

5/14/11 – Politics to blame for state’s inexcusable judicial vacancies
As a recent News Journal editorial addressed, the process that we call the federal judiciary appointment procedure is seriously broken and needs fixing. read full story

5/13/11 – Andrews’ nomination to bench was a good move
It's been nearly five years since Delaware's federal bench had a full slate of judges to handle cases and hearings in the U.S. District Court. That has been disruptive and a heavy burden on the remaining three judges. read full story

5/12/11 – Progress, but ’still a dearth’ of Asian-American Judges
The Obama administration has pressed for greater diversity on the federal bench, but the number of Asian-American judges still falls short, an advocate contends. read full story

5/12/11 – More Asian judges nominated
The eight Asian-Americans nominated by President Obama to be federal judges equal the total number on the federal bench the year he took office. read full story

5/10/11 – Health reform challenges: Why judicial appointments matter
The make-up of the 4th Circuit panel which heard oral arguments in the legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act illustrates what liberal advocates have been emphasizing to the White House for more than a year: judicial appointments matter. read full story

5/10/11 – Comeback kid
John "Jack" McConnell has scored something of a comeback, although as measured by legal ability, integrity, work ethic and civic-mindedness, he is very well qualified for his new job. read full story

5/9/11 – Obama should say no to ‘federal bar groupies’
President Barack Obama should resist the urge to appoint from with the ranks of those of who spent a career posturing for a shot on the bench. read full story

5/9/11 – In Senate, nominees flounder
Fights over nominations have begun to dominate the Senate’s agenda as both parties look for places to one-up each other in a chamber with little else to do. read full story

5/8/11 – Corporate lobbyists hold sway over judicial nominations
America cannot afford an obstructionist Senate minority that wants to render thousands of exceptionally talented and tremendously qualified attorneys ineligible from serving on the federal bench. read full story

5/7/11 – In the end, a little nudge from Sen. Reed helped
Judge D. Michael Fisher wrote “to most favorably recommend John J. McConnell who has been nominated by the President to the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island” — words of endorsement from a respected Republican jurist that were “very useful” to show potential GOP allies, Reed explained later. read full story

5/6/11 – The filibuster and judicial nominees
John McConnell's confirmation process is a poignant case study in the Senate's powerful role in judicial appointments and ultimately in the work of the judiciary. read full story

5/5/11 – Disqualifying excellence
Congress should be moving quickly to confirm the men and women President Obama nominates to these new posts—instead of allowing a small minority of the Senate to disqualify entire segments of the legal profession. read full story

5/5/11 – Snowe, Collins lauded for judicial nomination stances
The Senate Judiciary Committee was not the only place Wednesday that Maine’s Republican senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, took bipartisan positions on one of President Obama’s judicial nominees. read full story

5/5/11 – 11 Republican senators permit former planned parenthood director to become federal judge
Senate Democrats were able to confirm the former director of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island to a lifetime federal judgeship after 11 Republicans voted to close debate on the nomination and allow it to come up for a final vote. read full story

5/5/11 – Key republicans clear Obama to pack the district courts
John J. "Jack" McConnell, Jr. was confirmed by the U.S. Senate yesterday after a struggle by Sen. Mitch McConnell and other Republican Senators to block the nomination by opposing an unexpected cloture petition filed by Harry Reid. read full story

5/5/11 – Judicial vote reveals rift in GOP
Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and John Cornyn of Texas are clashing over a controversial judicial nominee, underscoring how their sharply divergent styles could profoundly shape Republican politics as they angle for a high-profile Senate leadership job. read full story

5/4/11 – Cornyn lies about nominee’s alleged lie
Earlier today, the Senate broke a GOP filibuster on district court nominee Jack McConnell by a vote of 63-33, despite a scorched earth campaign by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. read full story

5/4/11 – Federal courts, empty benches
Approximately 10.5% of the total Article III posts are currently left unfilled. read full story

5/4/11 – Why the Jack McConnell vote matters outside Rhode Island
Rhode Islanders have been tracking the ping-pong of trial lawyer Jack McConnell’s judicial nomination primarily because he’s a prominent figure locally and set to become the new U.S. District Court judge here in Providence. read full story

5/4/11 – The judicial nominations logjam
Some big news this afternoon on the judicial nominations front: The Senate approved cloture for District Court judge nominee John McConnell by a solid 63-33 vote, despite heavy opposition from conservative groups. read full story

5/3/11 – Cornyn: No gavel for Obama’s pay-for-play appointee
Nominated to the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island, Mr. McConnell throughout his career has tended toward perverting the rule of law, rather than upholding it. read full story

5/3/11 – Judicial nominee could snap Obama confirmation streak
President Obama’s perfect run of judicial nominees sailing through the Senate for confirmation in 2011 is facing its first challenge this week. read full story

5/3/11 – Sen. Leahy hits “new standard for obstruction”
Democratic leaders appear poised to force a U.S. Senate vote on the nomination of John J. McConnell for a district court judgeship in Rhode Island, which has proven highly contentious. read full story

5/3/11 – Isn’t it time Jack McConnell gets a Senate vote?
All you need to know about the dysfunctional culture of political Washington, D.C. these days is the way the U.S. Senate has treated the nomination of Providence lawyer Jack McConnell for a seat on the federal District Court bench. read full story

5/3/11 – GOP Senators leap to do the chamber’s obstructionist bidding on judges
The Chamber of Commerce has launched a scorched earth campaign against district court nominee Jack McConnell, a top plaintiffs’ attorney. read full story

5/2/11 – The brutal cost of judicial vacancies
The shortage of judges undermines both the ability of the judicial branch to effectively fulfill its duties and the government's obligation to the men and women who've risked their lives to defend it. read full story

5/1/11 – Judicial appointments held up in beltway slowdown
Many Democrats say Senate Republican leadership has slowed the process as much as possible for many of the president's judicial nominees. read full story

4/30/11 – Sotomayor: Of the Justices, I’m most like Scalia
The Justice most like Sotomayor in temperament? Conservative constitutional originalist Antonin Scalia. read full story

4/29/11 – Political appointments
With all this talk of political retirements among Supreme Court justices in the press today, encouraging the Court’s aging liberals to bow out soon seems to be de rigueur among liberals taking the long view of the Court. read full story

4/29/11 – Sotomayor pessimistic public, Senate will ever be pleased with judicial confirmations
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said on Friday the judicial confirmation process “needs to be reformed,” but said she is convinced that nothing will ever satisfy senators or the public, who want judicial nominees to provide something they can’t give. read full story

4/28/11 – Senator Cornyn and the filibuster of judicial nominees – a little historical revisionism thrown in with the hypocrisy
If Senator Cornyn is going to use historical precedent as a basis for departing from his stated views about the commands of the United States Constitution, he should at least get his history right. read full story

4/27/11 – Business, defendants harmed in cost-cutting at federal courts
Just as budgets matter, so does justice. The two are connected. Making sure we have enough judges in our federal courts will save dollars, not waste them. read full story

4/27/11 – Lack of federal judges a serious issue
The problem is and remains a lack of judges and court staff to handle the caseload. read full story

4/26/11 – Nominations adrift in the U.S. Senate
On nominations, the Constitution gives the Senate power to “advise and consent.” Too often, it does neither. read full story

4/26/11 – Empty courtrooms, long commutes: Valley lawyers want another federal judge
U.S. Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., on Tuesday announced a bipartisan agreement on a process to recommend candidates for nomination by the president to federal district court vacancies in Pennsylvania, including the three in the Eastern District. read full story

4/25/11 – Judge vacancies keep wheels of justice spinning
Nearly one in seven judgeships is unoccupied right now. More a third of those vacancies are considered judicial emergencies, meaning criminal defendants, who are normally guaranteed a trial within 70 days, wait up to six months. read full story

4/25/11 – Cornyn fires back
If 60 votes were required to confirm some judicial nominations by President Bush, then in rare cases 60 votes should be required to confirm judicial nominations by President Obama. read full story

4/25/11 – Judicial flip is unbecoming
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has performed a serious flip-flop on the Senate's judicial confirmation process. read full story

4/21/11 – Ed DuMont’s “Controversial” federal circuit nomination continues to languish after one year
Edward C. DuMont's original nomination as a judge for the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has now been awaiting Senatorial action for more than one year. read full story

4/21/11 – ‘No excuses’ for keeping 92 U.S. judgeships vacant
With no Supreme Court retirements in sight, there are “no excuses” for the Obama administration and Senate leadership not to knuckle down and fill 92 vacant federal judgeships. read full story

4/21/11 – Discovery dispute delaying theft case against Motley Rice
The court battle over the alleged theft of confidential documents by plaintiffs firm Motley Rice could have an impact on the pending nomination of Motley Rice attorney Jack McConnell to a federal judgeship in Rhode Island. read full story

4/21/11 – Goodwin Liu’s judicial temperament
Liu is widely admired not just for his intellect, but also for his decency, his open-mindedness, and his moderation. read full story

4/21/11 – Obama’s judicial nominations problem
The White House and the Senate should come together to address the judicial nominations problem immediately. read full story

4/20/11 – Missing in action
There are no excuses either for the administration or for the Democratic leadership in the Senate not to get down to the business of filling the 92 vacancies that now exist on the federal district courts and courts of appeals. read full story

4/18/11 – Courts without judges
Nearly one in seven judgeships is unoccupied right now, and more than a third of those vacancies are considered judicial emergencies. read full story

4/18/11 – Attack on justice in America

read full story

4/17/11 – Lack of fed judges a serious issue
The problem is and remains a lack of judges and court staff to handle the caseload. read full story

4/14/11 – White House scratches its head over some ABA ratings of judicial nominees
Conservative lawyers have for years criticized the American Bar Association for what they consider to be an uneven system for evaluating judicial nominees. President Barack Obama's lawyer says he's seeing the same thing. read full story

4/14/11 – Cornyn’s flip-flop is disappointing
Cornyn's flip-flop on nominations imperils the delicate process to fill six federal judicial vacancies in Texas, including one in San Antonio. read full story

4/13/11 – Lindsey Graham declares ‘no nominations go forward’ until he gets a $50,000 project
Graham (R-SC) promised to shut down all executive branch and judicial confirmations in the Senate until he gets $50,000 to conduct a study on deepening the Port of Charleston. read full story

4/13/11 – Judicial vacancies create a ‘crisis’ for federal courts
The federal court system is facing a crisis with pending vacancies, The Jacksonville Bar Association was told Tuesday. read full story

4/13/11 – Judges delayed, justice denied in nation’s courts
A number of seats on the federal judiciary have been vacant for over 900 days due to the gridlock in Washington. read full story

4/13/11 – Stop using politics to block Liu’s appointment to the 9th Circuit
The controversy over the Liu nomination is emblematic of the politicization of appointments to lower federal courts, a recent phenomenon. read full story

4/12/11 – Goodwin Liu nomination may trigger Senate drama
Republicans are expected to block Goodwin Liu’s confirmation vote with a filibuster when it finally hits the Senate floor after clearing the Senate Judiciary Committee for the third time last Thursday. read full story

4/11/11 – Senate continues brisk pace on judicial confirmations
The Senate will likely continue its pattern of confirming two judicial nominees per legislative week on Tuesday when it takes up debate and votes on the 16th and 17th nominees of the year. read full story

4/11/11 – State in dire need of federal judges
Increased law-enforcement efforts at the border have doubled the number of federal criminal cases being filed in Arizona. read full story

4/10/11 – Federal judge, 103, still hearing cases in Kansas
Brown is the oldest working federal judge in the nation, one of four appointees by President Kennedy still on the bench. read full story

4/8/11 – Courting failure
It is time for the president and the Democrats to be far more aggressive in overcoming Republican obstruction to ensure that well qualified judicial nominees are nominated and approved. read full story

4/7/11 – Alito opposition still haunts 9th Circuit nominee
Republican senators said today they have no plans to forgive Goodwin Liu for his 2006 testimony against the confirmation of Justice Samuel Alito Jr., adding to Liu's own steep climb toward a federal judgeship. read full story

4/7/11 – Senate must confirm Goodwin Liu to appellate court
The nomination of UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to a federal appeals court has been stalled by the partisan gamesmanship that pervades Washington. read full story

4/7/11 – Obama faces fight in choice for judge
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a controversial appeals court nomination Thursday, setting up the first big battle in this Congress over an Obama judicial nomination. read full story

4/5/11 – Senatorial Discourtesy?
Senate Republicans blocked a floor vote on the nomination of John J. McConnell, Jr. to the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island and Senator John Cornyn said he might support a filibuster. read full story

4/5/11 – ‘Advice and consent’ means voting, not obstructing
A president's choices for federal judgeships deserve the courtesy of a vote, regardless of the executive's political affiliation. read full story

4/3/11 – Aging judges keep federal courts running amid unfilled judicial vacancies, growing workloads
A 103-year-old federal judge still serving on the bench in Kansas is among aging judges keeping the courts running. read full story

4/1/11 – Grassley to decide role in opposing judicial nomination
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley is clearly not a fan of plaintiffs attorney Jack McConnell becoming a federal judge. read full story

3/31/11 – Rhode Island judicial nominee takes on more partisan fire
Short of Goodwin Liu, perhaps no federal judicial nominee in the past year has been roughed up in Congress more than John McConnell, a partner at famed plaintiffs’ firm Motley Rice. read full story

3/29/11 – Justice Delayed
The Supreme Court will hear arguments March 29 on whether 1.6 million women who work for Wal-Mart will be able to sue the company as a group for pervasive gender discrimination throughout its operations. read full story

3/28/11 – Judicial nominees disclose net worth, income
Two nominees for the federal bench, both with ties to large law firms, each has a net worth in seven figures, according to financial disclosure reports they submitted to the U.S. Senate. read full story

3/28/11 – Another judicial post gets filled
Mae A. D'Agostino was just confirmed by the Senate for District Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York by a vote of 88-0. read full story

3/28/11 – Nominee for Federal Circuit deserves a hearing
Last April President Obama nominated Mr. DuMont, an appellate specialist, to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which handles cases involving international trade, government contracts, patents and copyrights, among other things. read full story

3/25/11 – McCaskill’s judicial misstep damages reelection chances
Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) has been embroiled in scandal back home due to her failure to pay state taxes on a private plane she and her husband own. While this issue may damage her reputation as a good government reformer, her support for the appointment of Judge John A. Ross to the federal court in Eastern Missouri may prove to be much more damaging. read full story

3/23/11 – Senior judges ease “a very serious shortage”
Senior judges are particularly vital given that more than 90 federal judgeships across the nation —10 percent of regular full-time posts — remain unfilled, often because of political wrangling in Washington, D.C. read full story

3/22/11 – Radical anti-government group launches smear campaign against judicial nominee
Wonk Room: The right-wing Washington Times published a deeply misleading editorial this morning claiming that judicial nominee Susan Carney is caught up in some kind of ethics scandal. read full story

3/22/11 – Wash. Times declares judicial nominee with majority GOP support a “radical”
The Washington Times editorial board still cannot find another adjective to describe President Obama's judicial nominees besides "radical." read full story

3/22/11 – Senate confirmations: A partisan pelt-and-wait game
Grassley and other Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have made fairly clear that confirmations are war. They have blocked votes on many of Obama’s nominees as payback for when Democrats blocked votes on the nominees of Republican President George W. Bush. read full story

3/21/11 – Long wait continues on judicial nominations
California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer strongly support the Chen and Liu nominations. The holdup is with Senate Republicans, who continue to posture against them. read full story

3/21/11 – A D.C. Circuit nominee’s nimble appearance at the high court
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday debated a case testing the scope of the exclusionary rule in oral arguments that featured a lawyer who also is a nominee to a federal appeals court. read full story

3/18/11 – On judges, “progress” is relative
There are, despite the recent Senate actions, currently 94 vacancies on the federal bench. It's a relief when the chamber manages to do anything constructive, but we're looking at a good news/bad news dynamic. read full story

3/16/11 – The judicial confirmation crisis: The threat to diversity
A timely confirmation process would help ensure that the face of the federal judiciary reflects our nation's broad diversity. read full story

3/16/11 – Senate hearing for gay judicial nominee
U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, "shocked" no openly gay men served as federal judges, says gay candidate J. Paul Oetken possesses legal excellence and moderate views. read full story

3/14/11 – Six a fine choice for 10th Circuit
Six’s solid record and resume, including time as a Douglas County district judge and 10th Circuit clerk, make him a fine candidate for a federal appellate bench. read full story

3/14/11 – Senior judges keep 9th circuit courthouses open
As federal caseloads soar and judgeships go unfilled because of a recalcitrant Congress, some retired judges continue to preside over trials. Many are in their 80s. read full story

3/14/11 – Prestigious appointment
Friends and admirers of Lawrence attorney Steve Six will applaud the nomination of the former Kansas attorney general as a member of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. read full story

3/14/11 – Betty Fletcher, Seattle’s octogenarian judge, gets national press as federal courts’ savior
The pioneering woman judge leads a Times story this morning about how "senior" judges are coming "to the rescue" of the federal court system. read full story

3/14/11 – Out west, senior judges more than carry their weight
Due to partisan bickering between Republicans and Democrats in Washington, too many judicial seats stay empty for too long, requiring more work of judges who’ve taken “senior status” — taken on a reduced caseload. read full story

3/14/11 – National Review misfires in attack on Obama judicial nominee Halligan’s gun rights record
National Review Online blogger and conservative judicial activist Gary Marx accused Obama judicial nominee Caitlin Halligan of having "a very troubling record of dismissing the Second Amendment" during her time as New York state solicitor general. read full story

3/11/11 – A Note to Senator Grassley: Ten < Eleven
Whatever Senator Grassley may think about Ms. Halligan’s substantive qualifications to be a federal judge, he should at least get the numbers right, and be consistent about them. read full story

3/10/11 – Congrats for ex-Kan. AG nominated for 10th Circuit
Former Kansas Attorney General Steve Six could soon be back in a black robe after earning a presidential nod to become a federal appeals court judge. read full story

3/8/11 – Time for Senate to confirm Professor Goodwin Liu
Professor Liu is now well overdue for a confirmation vote. Senators should vote in favor of this exceptionally qualified, measured, and inspirational second-generation, Asian Pacific American nominee. read full story

3/8/11 – Good news, bad news on judges
The good news is that the Senate confirmed three more judges yesterday. The bad news is that this leaves 95 vacancies. read full story

3/7/11 – Federal judiciary releases caseload statistics
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has released its semi-annual report on the caseloads of the federal courts, including district, circuit and bankruptcy courts. read full story

3/7/11 – As judicial nominee, law professor Goodwin Liu lingers in limbo
A year after President Obama nominated him to the federal bench, it remains uncertain whether Goodwin Liu will ever assume the post. read full story

3/7/11 – Federal courts breaking under strain of the vacancy crisis
Later today, the Senate is expected to confirm two judges to one of the most understaffed courts in the country, and this vote is long overdue. read full story

3/7/11 – Gay federal appeals nominee: 11 months and still waiting for hearing
Republican members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee have been holding up the nomination of President Obama’s only openly gay nominee to a federal appeals bench. read full story

3/6/11 – The Ninth Circuit deserves another superlative mind
This week, the United States Senate undertook an extremely rare step -- subjecting a nominee for the federal judiciary to a second confirmation hearing. read full story

3/6/11 – The values of Professor Liu
Last week, Goodwin Liu recounted his young daughter's delight when told that the family would be returning to Washington for an unusual, second confirmation hearing for her father. read full story

3/5/11 – Marc Morial applauds judicial nomination of Nanette Jolivette-Brown
Former New Orleans mayor was exultant when he heard of Jolivette-Brown's nomination. read full story

3/4/11 – Letter in support of nomination of Caitlin Halligan
Lawyers who have worked with Ms. Halligan in various capacities express their support to the Senate Judiciary Committee. read full story

3/4/11 – Judicial nominee logjam creates ‘crisis’ in some federal courts
The chief judge of federal judicial District of Arizona warns a bulging criminal caseload is being exacerbated by three unfilled bench seats. read full story

3/4/11 – Maine media misses federal judge story
If you’re looking for an example of Maine news organizations’ over-reliance on press releases and public-relations handouts, look no further than the way they handled recent coverage of a U.S. District Court vacancy in the state. read full story

3/3/11 – Will Senate ever vote on Goodwin Liu?
President Barack Obama’s most controversial judicial nominee, Goodwin Liu, has been waiting for more than a year for his nomination to be voted on by the Senate due to Republican objection. read full story

3/3/11 – No Retraction or Apology to the National Review is in Order
The National Review has demanded that I retract or apologize for a portion of my post on Huffington. read full story

3/3/11 – The Goodwin Liu hearings, take two
University of California, Berkley law professor Goodwin Liu was back before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. read full story

3/3/11 – Dozens of Organizations Spotlight ‘Judicial Emergencies’ With This Week’s Senate Hearing of Stalled Nominee
"Justice delayed is justice denied" is the cry of many who are urging the Senate to take action to alleviate a "judicial emergency," an unfilled seat in an overwhelmed appellate court with an ever-increasing backlog of cases. read full story

3/2/11 – Round 2: The Goodwin Liu confirmation slugfest
Goodwin Liu, one of the more high profile judicial nominees in recent memory, is back in the news today. read full story

3/2/11 – Catch of the day
When it comes to First Amendment rights, Justice Alito draws the line at grieving military families and the suffering of small animals. read full story

3/2/11 – Judicial vacancies and Guantanamo
At Monday’s Brookings event on judicial nominations, Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the D.C. District Court offered a few thoughts on the impact of judicial vacancies on the D.C. District Court–the court that some, including Jack and Ben, have argued is the country’s de facto national security court. read full story

3/2/11 – Qualified, Measured, and Mainstream: Why the Senate Should Confirm Goodwin Liu
Based on my own review of his record, I believe it's not a close question that Liu is an outstanding nominee whose views fall well within the legal mainstream. read full story

3/1/11 – White House shares blame for judicial vacancies, panelists say
Some believe part of the slow pace of judicial confirmations is due to a lack of urgency from the White House in nominating judges. read full story

2/28/11 – On judicial confirmation delays, Lamberth issues pox on both houses
The chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia urged the Senate and White House on Monday to confirm more federal judges. read full story

2/28/11 – Judicial Emergency: Goodwin Liu’s nomination hits one year
As Liu's nomination approaches the one-year mark, the time has come to confirm him. Fully staffing our federal courts isn't about politics. It's about justice. read full story

2/28/11 – Prospects for change: Reforming senate rules surrounding confirmation
The Brookings Institution presented panels on potential ways to reform senate rules regarding federal judicial confirmations. read full story

2/28/11 – The judicial logjam: How it came about and its impact upon the courts
The Brookings Institution presented panels on the judicial nominations and confirmations delays among the White House and the Senate. read full story

2/28/11 – Judge says Senate is injuring federal judiciary
The slowing confirmation rate for federal judges means litigants aren't getting their cases heard in a timely way, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said today. read full story

2/28/11 – Obama losing judge wars, ex-Clinton official says
President Barack Obama's record on judicial nominees has been so unsuccessful he is making the tumultuous Clinton presidency look effective by comparison, a former Clinton official said today. read full story

2/25/11 – Senate faces cloture conundrum
Senate Democrats are considering a significant change to curtail the use of the filibuster, but changing the rules may be easier said than done. read full story

2/25/11 – One year ago in judicial nominations
Today is the one-year anniversary of Goodwin Liu's nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. read full story

2/24/11 – NRO’s Whelan Casually Accuses An Obama Judicial Nominee Of Committing A Felony
Conservative commentator Ed Whelan said we should "disbelieve" the testimony by Obama judicial nominee Caitlin Halligan that "the best way in which we can interpret [the Constitution] is to look to the text and the original intent of the Framers" and that it is not "ever appropriate to rely on foreign law in deciding the meaning of the U.S. Constitution." read full story

2/23/11 – Politics and our court system
Former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma is disappointed in Senators' decision to oppose judicial nominee Arvo Mikkanen. read full story

2/23/11 – Coburn and Inhofe place judicial nominee on double-secret probation
Okla. senators' refusal to discuss why they oppose Mikkanen is both misguided and misinformed. read full story

2/23/11 – J.R. Cook: Put aside party politics for Arvo Mikkanen nomination
Please put aside partisan politics. Native Americans deserve to be fairly represented in every level of our government. read full story

2/23/11 – Keep those federal judges coming
It would be in the best interest of both the president and the country if Mr. Obama would begin pushing those 45 federal judicial nominees through the Senate, and filling every federal vacancy he can. read full story

2/22/11 – Irked by fire district, Normandy mayor opposes judge’s promotion
The troubled Northeast Fire District is no longer under court supervision, but the bitter aftertaste of intervention remains. read full story

2/22/11 – Work for Utah’s federal judges piling up while DC stalls out
Watching federal judges juggle growing caseloads has become commonplace for attorneys who practice law in Salt Lake City’s federal courthouse. But it’s also become concerning. read full story

2/21/11 – Judicial nominee Arvo Mikkanen deserves answers
Obama nominee deserves to have questions about his nomination answered by not only Oklahoma's senators, but the President himself. read full story

2/21/11 – Across the river, or cross country, Brooklyn judges do the circuit
Sometimes Brooklyn federal court judges cross the East River to preside in a higher court in Manhattan. Sometimes the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals needs a little help from its lower court judges, and the Brooklyn jurists are happy to oblige. read full story

2/20/11 – No more delays, confirm Judge Shadid
Shadid has bipartisan support and he should be on the job, sooner rather than later. read full story

2/19/11 – Senate must stop games over court nominees
The president should act timely to nominate people to fill judicial vacancies. The Senate should find a way to vote judicial nominees up or down in a reasonable time. read full story

2/19/11 – Nelva Gonzales Ramos awaits hearing, Senate vote for federal judgeship
Those who have spent time in her court have caught a glimpse into why she's been ranked as one of the best district judges for years. read full story

2/18/11 – The right way to honor Judge John Roll
To best honor Judge Roll the White House should promptly fill those empty benches in Arizona with earnest, honest nominees. read full story

2/17/11 – Brookings Report on Judicial Emergencies
The National Review gives highlights and observations of the latest Brookings report. read full story

2/16/11 – Do judicial emergencies matter? Nomination and confirmation delay during the 111th Congress
Despite the judiciary’s effort to flag the vacancies it believes are most in need of filling, there is only limited evidence that the White House and the Senate–so far—have paid special attention to these emergency vacancies. read full story

2/16/11 – Graves: Nation will watch successor
With U.S. Senate confirmation on Monday of the nomination of state Supreme Court Judge James Graves to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Gov. Haley Barbour faces a decision that will draw nationwide attention. read full story

2/16/11 – Judgeships mired in judicial politics
There is a crisis in America's federal courts that has absolutely nothing to do with politics, although that is its cause. read full story

2/15/11 – Judge Shortage
The Obama administration has been slow to nominate judges and republicans have delayed some nominations and blocked others. Arcane Senate rules allow individual senators to indefinitely tie up nominations. read full story

2/15/11 – Key judicial seats still empty
 while Halligan's nomination is a step in the right direction, it may still be a long process before she actually sits down in the D.C. Circuit's longer-empty chair. read full story

2/15/11 – Graves says he feels ‘pressure’ to do good job
Mississippi Supreme Court Justice James Graves says he'll feel pressure to do a good job on the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans. read full story

2/14/11 – A tale of two nominees
In our supposedly post-racial society in which issues of LGBT rights are constantly litigated before federal and state courts, it is telling that the nomination of an openly gay man has caused no backlash, while the nomination of a member of a minority that makes up 8 percent of a state’s population can’t be shot down quickly enough. read full story