General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsContinuing the "tit for tat" in the Senate.
On Judicial Confirmations History and NumbersPartisans in judicial nomination fights like to play the victim. As each side tells it, obstruction of judicial nominees is all the other sides fault. Each act of contemporary obstruction is justified by some act of obstruction that came before. The reality, however, is that there are no clean hands in these fights any more. For over twenty-five years the two parties have been engaged in an escalating game of tit-for-tat. Each time the tables are turned, the opposition party retaliates in kind, and then some. Given the reactions to my post yesterday on judicial nominations, I thought it would be worth recounting the history (as I have before) with the relevant data and then to explain what it means. Ill follow this up with a post on what I think should be done, in light of this history, to end the obstruction of judicial nominees.
In the context of appellate nominations, Senate Democrats decided to begin opposing some of President Reagans nominees in 1986. Although they did not frame their opposition in ideological terms, this initial effort was clearly motivated by a desire to prevent the Reagan Administration from stocking the courts with judicial nominees who shared the administrations conservative judicial philosophy. This initial effort yielded a few victories a few nominees were defeated (including Jeff Sessions, who now sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee) but 88 percent of Reagans appellate nominees were confirmed. Efforts to block conservative judicial nominees by delaying confirmation increased during the latter half of George H. W. Bushs Administration and, as a consequence, only 79 percent of his appellate nominees were confirmed. (Data on confirmation rates are taken from this Brookings Institution report by Russell Wheeler.)
President Clintons nominees had relatively smooth sailing during his first two years, when Senate Democrats held the majority, but his administration was relatively slow to make nominations. As data available from the Federal Judicial Center shows, at the end of his first year in office, President Clinton had named nominees for fewer than twenty percent of judicial vacancies. For the twenty appellate vacancies in November 1993, Clinton had only named two nominees. The Clinton Administrations failure to move on judicial nominations became a problem when Republicans took the Senate in 1994. With fewer nominees in the confirmation pipeline, it was relatively easy for Republicans to keep Clintons confirmation numbers down. All they had to do was slow down the process and they did.
more at the link including President Obama's success / failure rate of nominees..
CatWoman
(79,301 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)karadax
(284 posts)If you go through the link it'll demonstrate that they have indeed blocked more of the Presidents nominees than any other president beforehand. The rate of successful appointments started high and has been going down since Reagan.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)the author works for the National Review and supported Fred Thompson for President in 2008.
Seriously, this is not time for the "both sides do it" false equivalency.
168 filibusters of nominees in our history. HALF of them have occurred during Obama years!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024069779
Senate GOP blows itself up. What the hell (were) they thinking?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024069959
leftyohiolib
(5,917 posts)reminds me of someone who went by the name of trolly mctrollerson
Pretzel_Warrior
(8,361 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Pretzel_Warrior
(8,361 posts)To deliver the bogus propaganda.
annabanana
(52,791 posts)And who dat say "who dat" when I say "who dat"?
HappyMe
(20,277 posts)It's the newest concern candy.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)backscatter712
(26,355 posts)We're seeing a whole lot of "concerned" people here in the face of the nuking.