Kevin D. Korenthal, May 5, 2005

The President has always held the ability to nominate to the federal courts any candidates he sees fit to nominate. 52% of American voters re-elected the President. This would suggest that at least 52% of Americans support his right to nominate and get an up or down vote on his picks for vacancies in the federal courts.

The filibuster is being abused by the minority party to hold from a vote, nominees that have the support of a majority of the Senate. Bill Clinton had several judges that were held from an up or down vote because, for whatever reasons, these nominees never even made it out of committee.

Democrats are filibustering hardest on minority judges. This is because they are not interested in allowing minorities (especially conservative ones) to gain high office in the government. The Democratic Party has held reign in minority communities by supposedly being their advocate. That advocacy consisted of telling minorities that they are being repressed and then offering them welfare programs and affirmative action to supposedly level the playing field. The Republican Party in contrast has sought out ideologically equivalent minorities and has placed them, based on individual merit into increasingly important positions in government and within the party.

Only one judicial nominee, Abe Fortas, who had some ethical problems who could garner a majority of the votes in the full Senate, has ever been filibustered. This is of course counter to what the Democrats have implied. In addition, Democrats are proceeding with the filibuster on their claim that a vast majority of Bush’s nominees have already been approved, more so than Bill Clinton had approved at the same period in his administration. This is in fact true. The issue lies not with how many total judges are being held-up but rather within which judicial territory those judges have been nominated to serve.

All of the judges being filabustered by Democrats have been nominated to positions within the Federal Appeals Court. This is the very last court in which cases can be settled before being presented in the Supreme Court. This means these judges are exceedingly more important than almost any judges below them.

I don’t put a lot of faith in the results of political polls taken by the media. But seeing that even Republican Party pollsters are seeing lackluster support for ending the filibuster for judicial nominees has me thinking that the Democrats have been successful in advancing the fantasy that filibusters are a necessary part of the judicial nomination process.

Copyright © 2005 Kevin D. Korenthal