That minimizes the trouble they can cause.
The Constitution is one of the most power filled documents every pinned. But, fortunately, it gave all the power to Congress. And Congress is just not one committee, but two. It took them about 100 years to figure out how to work around that, and while they were doing almost nothing, the country took off.
The only problem I have with the Senate staying Dem is the Judges, I see that Bush made an attempt today to try to work something out on this problem. From the NYT.
October 30, 2002
President Offers Plan to Expedite Judicial Confirmations
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 President Bush, who has been frustrated by Democrats in his efforts to shape the federal judiciary, suggested a new method today for handling judicial appointments and ending a situation that he said "endangers the quality of justice in America."
"Today, I'm proposing a clean start for the process of nominating and confirming federal judges," Mr. Bush told an audience that included officials of the American Bar Association. "We must have an even-handed, predictable procedure from the day a vacancy is announced to the day a new judge is sworn in."
Under Mr. Bush's proposal, district and appeals court judges would notify the president of their intended retirement at least a year in advance. The president would submit a nomination to the Senate within 180 days of receiving notice of a vacancy. The Senate Judiciary Committee would hold a hearing within 90 days of receiving a nomination, and the full Senate would vote on each nominee no later than 180 days after the submission of a nomination.
"This procedure should apply now and in the future," Mr. Bush said, "no matter who lives in this house or who controls the Senate. We must return fairness and dignity to the judicial confirmation process."
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, did not immediately respond to Mr. Bush's proposal. But on Monday, he complained in a letter to the president that the White House appeared to want to "politicize" the judicial selection process to "create a partisan campaign issue."
"Meaningful consultation, ideological balance and a depoliticizing of the judicial nomination process are all matters I remain willing to discuss," Mr. Leahy said. "We have accomplished a good deal already. We could accomplish much more working more closely together."
That was the precisely the tone the White House sought to set in a statement preceding Mr. Bush's announcement. "The objective is to fix, on a permanent and bipartisan basis, a judicial confirmation process that is clearly broken," the White House statement said.
Mr. Bush, addressing the gathering in the East Room this afternoon, picked up the same theme. "Whatever the explanation, we clearly have a poisoned and polarized atmosphere in which well-qualified nominees are neither voted up or down," the president said. "They are just left in limbo." He said the situation was unfair to nominees and their families and discouraged good people from wanting to be judges.
Whether the confirmation process is "clearly broken" is a matter of debate. Mr. Bush said there was a 9 percent vacancy rate in federal district courts and a 17 percent vacancy rate on appeals courts.
Mr. Bush has accused the Democrat-controlled Senate of doing "a lousy job" on his nominations, as he phrased it in a recent campaign stop in Michigan. He has repeatedly said that the slow confirmation process is just another reason that the country would be better off if the Senate were controlled by Republicans again, after the Nov. 5 elections.
Democrats have complained that some of Mr. Bush's nominees are overly conservative, and opponents have blocked several of them, though more than 80 have been confirmed, including 14 for federal appeals courts. Democrats have said that most mainstream Bush nominees have been confirmed easily. The Democrats have also accused Republicans of conveniently overlooking their own past recalcitrance on judicial nominees when the Senate was controlled by Republicans.
Appeals court judgeships have become increasingly important, since nominees for the United States Supreme Court often come from those benches. The present line-up of the Supreme Court has been intact since 1994, and while no current justice has hinted at retirement, Justice John Paul Stevens is 82 and two other justices are in their 70's.
Holding out an olive branch to senators, Mr. Bush said, "The Constitution has given us a shared duty, and we must meet that duty together." |
