The Constitution requires Senate consent before the president can appoint an individual federal judge and gives Congress authority to create, abolish or rearrange federal judicial positions. These two responsibilities converged when President Obama made three nominations to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which clearly needs no more judges.
Creating a politically useful statistic requires only an agenda and a calculator, but this debate needs something more objective. In a July 2006 letter, Judiciary Committee Democrats opposed more D.C. Circuit appointments for two reasons: The court’s caseload had declined, and more pressing “judicial emergency” vacancies had not been filled. Assuming that those criteria were useful for Republican nominees, let’s apply them now to Democratic nominees.
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.
For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]
