Obama needs a fresh approach to naming judges

[Tx4obama]

Obama needs a fresh approach to naming judges

President Barack Obama has less than four years remaining as president of the United States, but the judges he appoints to the federal courts will be applying and interpreting the laws that he promoted for decades after that. During the past month, the president has had his greatest period of success with his judicial nominees. His nominee for the all-important D.C. Circuit, Sri Srinivasan, appears likely to be confirmed by the Senate, and the Senate has confirmed several other nominees.

What should Obama do to take advantage of this momentum? It is time for him to focus on a neglected but important part of the nominations process: the problems with how senators supply the president with candidates to be nominated to the federal bench.

Progressive critics of Obama’s judicial nominations strategy have misdirected their energies by focusing solely on the very final stages of a long nomination process. Progressives have argued that the White House takes too long in selecting judicial nominees. As one report recently indicated, “the average number of days from the opening of a seat to a nomination increased by 44 percent between Bush’s and Obama’s first terms.” The other culprit they point to is Senate obstruction after it is formally sent the name of a nominee. Obama’s judicial nominees have waited three times longer on the floor of the Senate than did those of President George W. Bush.

These issues are crucially important, to be sure. But all of this attention on delays in nominations and obstructions after nominations largely ignores what happens in the Senate before a nomination, when much of the groundwork is laid for determining whom the president can nominate and how the Senate will treat his nominees. Senators from the state where judicial openings arise play a large role in indicating to the president which potential nominees they would support.

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Full two page article here: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/obama-needs-a-fresh-approach-to-naming-judges-91426.html?hp=r8

A Good Read

[4dsc]

1. It takes leadership

and right now that's lacking within the Democratic party.