White House Counsel Says Judicial Nominees Are ‘Basically Ignored’ in the Senate
White House counsel Robert Bauer said Tuesday that the rate of judicial confirmations is “perilously low,” creating judicial emergencies in more than half the districts where nominations are pending.
Bauer criticized the “disturbing” situation at an event sponsored by the American Constitution Society, according to The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times and the Huffington Post.
One of the problems, Bauer said, is that many nominees are “basically ignored.” The Huffington Post has this quote from Bauer: “Nominees left languishing on the floor for as much as hundreds of days without a vote, are basically ignored, not because … of perceived deficiencies in their record or shortcomings as potential jurists. It is a quiet blow to the process. But it is a heavy blow nonetheless. No shouting on the floor, just nothing on the floor. It is as if … it did not matter at all. But of course it matters a great deal: to the nominees, to the courts to which they were nominated to serve, and to the parties to those courts.”
There are currently 101 vacancies on the district and circuit courts, The BLT says, relying on numbers provided by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
