Tag Archives: Topic: Nominations

Scott W. Gaylord at NewsObserver.com: Since 1868, North Carolinians have elected the members of their judiciary, making our judges directly accountable to the people for these “political” decisions. The North Carolina Bar Association and other groups now seek to replace our system of elections with an appointment-based system, known in legal circles as the Missouri Plan.

LifeNews.com: Obama has appointed Andrew Hurwitz to the 9th Circuit Court, the most liberal appeals court in the country based in San Francisco and covering laws approved in western states. Yet, according to the Daily Caller, Hurwitz was instrumental to providing some of the legal framework for Roe, which resulted in 54 million abortions.

Ronald Rotunda at Fox News: So, the DOJ is simultaneously claiming that it completely walled off Kagan from any discussions involving the constitutional defense of ObamaCare, while admitting that Kagan was participating in emails discussing “legal issues, arguments, and strategy concerning” the anticipated ObamaCare litigation.

NYTimes.com: 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.

NJ.com: When Christie introduced Harris and fellow nominee Phillip Kwon to the press on Monday, he made a point of noting that Harris is openly gay. He also introduced the domestic partner of the 61-year-old Chatham mayor, who is an attorney in private practice.

KTAR.com: Arizona Supreme Court Justice Andrew Hurwitz was subjected to only a few light questions Thursday as the Senate Judiciary Committee considered his nomination to a seat on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Daily Report: The White House and Georgia’s U.S. senators may agree that Atlanta lawyers Jill A. Pryor and Mark H. Cohen should be federal judges—but they apparently differ on which lawyer should fill an opening at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and which one should serve on Atlanta’s U.S. District Court.

Hendrik Hertzberg at The New Yorker: Yet at least one idea Perry embraced was, and is, very good indeed. It involves the Supreme Court. The Governor may be a little shaky about the Court’s names and numbers, but he knows what to do about it.

NYTimes.com: Sure, being the top judge of the appeals court in Brooklyn is impressive. It is one of the most powerful judicial seats in the state.

Atlanta J. Constitution: Republican Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson on Tuesday wrote White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler that they would not hold up Atlanta lawyer Mark Cohen if he is nominated to fill a vacancy on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. They also said they would not block U.S. Magistrate Linda Walker and Atlanta lawyer Jill Pryor if they are nominated to the U.S. District Court.

WSJ.com: -Senate Republicans won’t launch a direct legal challenge to the White House’s contentious move to use recess appointments to install senior officials at a new consumer financial agency and the National Labor Relations Board, a senior GOP leadership aide said.

NewsOK.com: After a long-running White House effort to find a successor for Robert Henry on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, President Barack Obama has nominated Oklahoma City magistrate judge who was on a list given to Sen. Tom Coburn.

Phyllis Schlafly at Townhall: Barack Obama’s latest unconstitutional action is his attempt to make four so-called recess appointments to high-level, well-paying jobs in the federal bureaucracy when the Senate was not in recess. He appointed three people to the National Labor Relations Board, plus Richard Cordray to head the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, even though the Senate had declined to confirm his nomination.

News from The Associated Press: More than 70 nominees to judgeships and senior federal agency positions are awaiting the next move from Republicans, who can use Senate rules to block votes on some or all of Obama’s picks.

NJ.com: Gov. Chris Christie today nominated an openly gay African-American Republican mayor and a Korean-American assistant attorney general to the state’s highest court.

Rick Santorum at Washington Times: Mr. Romney nominated 36 judges while governor, just nine of whom were Republicans. What he says of this record today is that the Massachusetts Governor’s Council had to confirm the nominees, and the members of the council were all Democrats. So his answer was to nominate persons palatable to Democrats.

TheHill.com: Some legal experts, including those who have sided with President Obama on other constitutional issues, think there is a good chance the courts could overturn his recent recess appointments.

AthensNews.com: Ohio U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Marietta, recently threatened to file a lawsuit against President Barack Obama over his recent controversial recess appointments.

Russell Wheeler at Brookings Institute: Overall, from President Jimmy Carter’s administration to that of President George W. Bush, confirmation rates for circuit nominees have declined steadily (counting someone who was renominated in the same or different Congresses as a single nominee). District nominees’ confirmation rates, though, have hovered around the 90 percent mark (President George H.W. Bush’s district judge figures are misleading +).

The Blog of Legal Times: A report released today by the Council for Court Excellence shows that the bulk of judges confirmed to the District of Columbia Superior Court come from government service, and also that the nominating process can be “unpredictable” once lawyers are recommended to the White House.

News from The Associated Press: Two pro-business advocacy groups on Friday filed the first legal challenge to President Barack Obama’s recent recess appointments, asking a federal judge to find them unconstitutional.

NJ.com: U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez agreed yesterday to meet again with U.S. Magistrate Judge Patty Shwartz, a welcome sign that he may back down from his confrontation with the Obama administration over her nomination.

WSJ.com: Tom Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said Thursday the group wouldn’t “sue today” to block Cordray’s appointment, but held out the possibility that position could change in the future.

DOJ: The convening of periodic pro forma sessions in which no business is to be conducted does not have the legal effect of interrupting an intrasession recess otherwise long enough to qualify as a “Recess of the Senate” under the Recess Appointments Clause. In this context, the President therefore has discretion to conclude that the Senate is unavailable to perform its advise-and-consent function and to exercise his power to make recess appointments.

Bloomberg: In September 2010, President Barack Obama nominated New York lawyer Caitlin Halligan to replace John Roberts on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington. Halligan waited for more than a year as her file made its way through the Senate.

TheHill.com: In a memo, Justice argued the pro-forma sessions held every third day in the Senate do not constitute a functioning body that can render advice and consent on the president’s nominees. It said the president acted consistently under the law by making the appointments.

Reuters: The White House on Thursday refused to say whether lawyers at the U.S. Justice Department gave the green light to President Barack Obama’s controversial appointments to two agencies but experts said the department almost certainly did provide advice.

Bruce Ackerman at WSJ: Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, writing for all eight Republican members on the Judiciary Committee, has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to elaborate the Justice Department’s position on the key issues.

Seattle Times: Gov. Christine Gregoire named King County Superior Court Judge Steven González to the state Supreme Court Tuesday, replacing the retiring Justice Gerry Alexander.

Michael McConnell at WSJ.com: It’s a mistake to excuse Obama’s disregard for the Constitution. Precedents set now will be exploited by the next administration.

Human Events: “Business as we know it in the Senate is over for this administration in terms of accomplishing anything legislatively or finding any cooperation from this side of the aisle,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R. –Wyo.). “He has poisoned the well.”

NJ.com: The move, which has effectively derailed the nomination of U.S. Magistrate Patty Shwartz to the Third Circuit, marks the first time a judicial appointee of President Obama has been held up by a senator from his own party.

The Washington Post: “It is disappointing that a former constitutional law professor does not understand that the president is not a dictator or a king who can simply ignore the Constitution whenever he feels frustrated by the system of checks and balances wisely put in place by our Founders,” Paul said in a statement.

The Hill: Rick Santorum said the Senate should sue over President Obama’s decision Wednesday to appoint Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and name three members to vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board.

How Appealing reports.

Jonathan Adler at The Volokh Conspiracy : The WSJ Law Blog reports on comments by former Senator Rick Santorum (unearthed at RedState) on federalism and the authority of different states to adopt different policies on moral questions.

WSJ: Rick Santorum’s loss-as-win in Iowa gives Law Blog a chance to take a look at his views on the Constitution and the judiciary. Fortunately for us, Santorum gave a policy speech in November on the subject. Dozens of people attended.

TheHill.com: President Obama is confident he had the authority to recess-appoint Richard Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday.

The Hill: Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who chairs a House subcommittee that oversees the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), on Wednesday said President Obama’s decision to recess-appoint a director for the CFPB is a move against transparency and accountability.

Human Events: “Breaking from this precedent lands this appointee in uncertain legal territory, threatens the confirmation process and fundamentally endangers the Congress’s role in providing a check on the excesses of the executive branch,” he said.

Washington Examiner: When President Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ) defends Obama’s “recess appointment” — made today after the Senate adjourned yesterday — his lawyers will have to argue against the position they took on recess appointments last year, during a Supreme Court hearing.

John Ellwood at The Volokh Conspiracy: In October 2010, my former boss at DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, Steve Bradbury, and I wrote this op-ed arguing that such pro forma sessions at which no business is conducted do not interrupt a recess of the Senate within the meaning of the Recess Appointments Clause, and thus do not interfere with the President’s recess appointment authority.

U.S. Senator Scott Brown at The Boston Globe: GOP PRESIDENTIAL hopeful Newt Gingrich recently made disturbing comments regarding the judiciary. He proposed that Congress should be able to impeach judges whose decisions he believes to be wrong. If elected, he would abolish courts that displease him, ignore Supreme Court decisions he doesn’t approve of, and order US marshals to arrest judges to force them to explain their decisions to Congress.

The Hill: President Obama plans to circumvent Senate GOP opposition and recess appoint his nominee to head a new consumer bureau.

TheHill.com: President Obama is under strong pressure from liberals to use his recess-appointment power during the congressional break, but doing so would break 20 years of precedent, putting him in a tough position.

Governor O’Malley’s Blog: Governor Martin O’Malley announced today the appointment of Robert N. (“Bob”) McDonald, the Chief Counsel of Opinions and Advice for the Office of the Attorney General, to the Court of Appeals, Maryland’s highest court.

Danny Hays at The Washington Post: Those ideas have been roundly criticized across the political spectrum, but the notion at the core of Gingrich’s criticism — that the court is an inherently political institution, not merely an objective arbiter of justice — is embraced by much of the public.

News from The Associated Press: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says rival Newt Gingrich’s idea to send Capitol Police or U.S. marshals to bring judges before lawmakers to explain their decisions is neither practical nor constitutional.

The Hill: Republican senators have asked President Obama not to recess appoint his two nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

NewsOK.com: Opposition from Sens. Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe effectively kills chances for Arvo Mikkanen, an assistant U.S. attorney in Oklahoma City, who would have been the only American Indian on the federal bench.

LaTimes.com: Christen was opposed by some religious and anti-abortion groups because of her previous work as an attorney for Planned Parenthood and in battling Big Oil after the Exxon Valdez spill.

The Hill: Issues of judicial jurisprudence took a surprisingly prominent position in Thursday’s GOP presidential debate, with candidates questioning how far Congress should go to rein in courts if they go too far.

Tulsa World: A beleaguered process that repeatedly has failed to put Oklahomans in key federal positions reportedly has produced a potential nominee to fill a year-old vacancy on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Robert Bacharach, a federal magistrate in Oklahoma City, is being vetted for the post, according to sources familiar with the process.

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show. | MP3 audio 8:22 mins

Amy Contrada at Renew America: Can he be trusted as President to appoint conservatives to the Courts and Justice Department?

The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram: In spite of being given two names, President Obama has yet to nominate a replacement for Judge Kermit Lipez on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Hill: Consumer groups are calling on President Obama to seize rarely-used powers in the Constitution to make a recess appointee out of consumer financial watchdog nominee Richard Cordray.

The Blog of Legal Times: The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved by voice vote the nomination of Kathryn Keneally for the top tax-enforcement post at the U.S. Justice Department, sending the nominee to the full Senate for consideration.

The Blog of Legal Times: Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Senate Judiciary Committee Republican, said in a written statement released before the vote that he had concerns about her time as New York solicitor general, noting a suit in which she argued that gun manufacturers were public nuisances.

EENEWS.net: A lawyer President Obama nominated to serve on the appeals court that handles most of the legal challenges to environmental regulations faces a make-or-break procedural vote in the Senate today. The nomination of Caitlin Halligan . . .

Editorials – The Boston Globe: 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.

Senate Republicans on Tuesday successfully filibustered the nomination of pro-abortion judicial nominee Caitlin Halligan to replace Supreme Court Justice John Roberts on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, considered to be the nation’s second most important court.

Senate Democrats: This evening Senator Reid filed cloture on the nomination of Caitlin Joan Halligan, to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia

he American Bar Association has secretly declared a significant number of President Obama’s potential judicial nominees “not qualified,” slowing White House efforts to fill vacant judgeships . . .

he federal appellate court that covers Maryland has for years been considered one of the more right-leaning in the nation, finding that women can be banned from a military institute, that the FDA can’t regulate tobacco and that confessions count even when suspects haven’t been read their rights, among other conservative opinions.

Thomson Reuters: U.S. Senators on Friday brokered an agreement to take up five judicial nominees after the Senate returns from its Thanksgiving break.

The Blog of Legal Times: Roy McLeese III, a veteran appellate attorney in Washington, was nominated Thursday to a slot on the D.C. Court of Appeals.

How Appealing links to DuMont’s letter and a report.

The Blog of Legal Times: President Barack Obama on Monday withdrew the nomination of a U.S. magistrate judge whom he tapped for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

The Hill reports on the expected confirmation today of Stephen Higginson to serve on the fifth circuit court.

The Washington Post reports on Obama’s latest nomination to the D.C. Circuit.

The Denver Post: The three men vying to be Colorado’s next state Supreme Court justice hail from all points of the political compass, though none considers himself politically active.

Joe Nocera at the NY Times: The rejection of a Supreme Court nominee is unusual but not unheard of (see Clement Haynsworth Jr.). But rarely has a failed nominee had the pedigree — and intellectual firepower — of Bork.

San Francisco Chronicle: U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer says he will transfer to senior status with a limited caseload by the end of the year, creating another vacancy on the federal bench in San Francisco.

Richmond Times-Dispatch: Cleo Elaine Powell was formally sworn in today as the first African-American woman on the 232-year-old Virginia Supreme Court.