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May 19, 2011

Comments

Christopher Lee

one wonders if this signals that recess appointments will become the norm rather than the exception. in this polarized environment, the only way to get anything controversial done in washington remains if the same party holds the white house and a super majority in the senate.

Kent Scheidegger

"Please remember the judicial wars all started in the Clinton admin."

You don't consider the attacks on Bork and Thomas to be part of the "judicial wars"?

"Only people on the far, far right actually thinks Liu was an EC."

Nonsense. If that were true, 43 Senators would not have voted against cloture. You think Senator Alexander, whose position is stated in the first comment to in this thread, is "far, far right"? Preposterous.

"Republicans stabbed the democrats in the back, now, the judicial wars will contiune."

Republican blocking of nominees in the present Administration is far less than the Democrats did in the previous one. If they had let this one through, the notion that Leahy et al. would have reciprocated when the Republican get the White House back is pure fantasy.

JD Di Giacomo

Anybody read the ABA guidelines for judicial nominees? It requires 12 years experience & that the nominee necessarily be a trial lawyer. That, combined with the fact that a vast majority of CA county DA's recommended against Liu, means "strike three" -- he's out!

Rick

Kent,

Please remember the judicial wars all started in the Clinton admin..Things were so bad that Clinton actually submitted a list of SCOTUS nominees he was considering to Sen. Hatch...From my understanding, Hatch refused ALOT of names, before Ginsburg was seen as accecptable...

Sure, the democrats paid republicans back, but the Gang of 14 Compromise was supposed to wipe the slate clean and start anew...Only people on the far, far right actually thinks Liu was an EC...He had too many credible conservative backers (Painter, Starr, Yoo, Bolick) Liu's detractors were from ULTRA far right blogs & newspapers..Republicans stabbed the democrats in the back, now, the judicial wars will contiune...

Quote below is from Sen. Leahy's remarks from yesterday, where he talked about some of the nominees who democrats through their good graces let be confirmed:

"The Senate invoked cloture on the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to the D.C. Circuit. She was a nominee who had argued that Social Security was unconstitutional, saying that “[t]oday's senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren.” They agreed to invoke cloture on the nomination of Priscilla Owen to the D.C. Circuit, a nominee whose rulings on the Texas Supreme Court were so extreme they drew the condemnation of other conservative judges on that court. Alberto Gonzales, President Bush’s White House counsel and later his Attorney General, went so far as to describe one of her opinions as advocating “an unconscionable act of judicial activism.”

Herb

"Judge Alito’s record envisions an America where police may shoot and kill an unarmed boy to stop him from running away with a stolen purse … where a black man may be sentenced to death by an all-white jury for killing a white man.... I humbly submit that this is not the America we know. Nor is it the America we aspire to be.” -- Liu in his testimony against Alito.

Amazing as Alito has had a couple of dissents this year that show him too be possibly the most sympathetic Supreme Court Judge.

Richard M. Adler

If the Democrats only had let ideology stand in the way of confirmation as the Republicans have in the Liu nomination, the nation wouldn't be suffering from the atrocious Supreme Court decisions by right wing ideologues Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito.

Walter

If Ken Starr can get over it, the politicians should too.

Ironically, even though federal judges owe their careers to political appointments, their responsibility to interpret the law proficiently requires them to be more perceptive (and smarter) than your usual "strategery"-oriented legislator.

Most federal district court and appellate judges do live up to this standard.

That other federal court - which routinely churns out unprecedented political strategery as if it were gold - can go unmentioned in this discussion.

Kent Scheidegger

"I CANNOT wait til the next time a republican president makes a judicial nomination and democrats filibuster him or her...."

Of course they will. They did last time the Republicans had the White House, and they will again next time. Do you think for a minute they would refrain if the Republicans unilaterally disarmed now?

"so much for that Gang of 14 Compromise"

So much? The compromise expressly provided for continued use of the filibuster in "extraordinary circumstances." This one surely fits.

Rick

The vote was "not even close"...What a farce...Only in the US senate can a side PREVAIL 52-43, yet the side with 43 wins...In the NFL, if the final score is New England 31, NYJ 28, the Jets don't win..No where else on this planet or any other, can one be on a losing side & yet be victorious..

I'd bet this travesty (so much for that Gang of 14 Compromise) will not soon be forgotten...I CANNOT wait til the next time a republican president makes a judicial nomination and democrats filibuster him or her....

Kent Scheidegger

This is indeed a case of "extraordinary circumstances." Congratulations to the Republicans who held firm.

The Ninth Circuit has an absolutely dismal record, especially in habeas review of state criminal cases. In the current term, the Ninth has been reversed in 6 of 6 habeas cases, 5 of them unanimously.

We need nominees who will make this train-wreck of a court better, not worse. Liu's attack on Alito's habeas record demonstrates that Liu is fully aligned with Reinhardt and the very worst of the Ninth Circuit judges.

Withdraw this nomination, President Obama, and nominate someone who will faithfully follow Supreme Court precedent and the habeas statutes.

Jim Jeffries, Alexander spokesman

Of his vote, Alexander said: “The Senate is a body of precedent. Since 2005, in the case of Court of Appeals judges or Supreme Court justices, I have followed the precedent established that year by the ‘Gang of 14’: I reserve the right to vote against allowing an up or down vote in an extraordinary case. I consider this to be an extraordinary case. I also agree with the Senate precedent never to filibuster federal district court judges.”

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