Judicial nominees

Dems oppose appeals court nominee because he is White

Featured image Tom Kirsch is President Trump’s nominee to fill the seat on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals vacated by Justice Barrett. Kirsch is well qualified for the judgeship, and his nomination has received approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee. However, some Senate Democrats are opposing Kirsch because he is White. For example, Sen. Blumenthal says the Seventh Circuit lacks “diversity,” and that if Kirsch is confirmed, the court will continue »

Let’s not leave court of appeals judgeships on the table

Featured image The presidential race is all over but the shouting (and long may the shouting continue). President Trump is now a lame duck. But this doesn’t mean Trump is without power. He has the power, for example, to nominate federal judges. And with the GOP in control of the Senate, he ought to be able to have them confirmed. As I understand it, there are three vacant court of appeals positions »

Correction on Biden’s judicial nominees

Featured image Last week, I wrote a post about confirming (or not) Joe Biden’s judicial nominees. My post assumed that if the GOP retains control of the Senate, Lindsey Graham will be chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The assumption is incorrect. If the GOP retains control, Chuck Grassley will be the Judiciary Committee chairman. Grassley intends to exercise his “bumping rights” to regain the gavel. Graham has a long record of »

Will Biden’s judicial nominees be confirmed?

Featured image It seems clear that Joe Biden will be the next president. The make-up of the Senate is less certain. It looks like there will be two run-off elections in Georgia and that the Dems will have to win both to get to 50 seats. Odds are they won’t accomplish this. (I will post about this later today.) Assuming GOP control of the Senate, will Biden be able to have his »

Justice Barrett!

Featured image It’s all done. She’s Justice Barrett now. As Paul has already noted, Democrats have themselves to blame in their expedient decision under Harry Reid to eliminate the filibuster for appellate court nominees—a move determined by entirely short-term considerations of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals that kept blocking overreaching executive branch initiatives from President Obama. I wonder if this bitter experience will give Democrats pause about abolishing the legislative filibuster »

Chuck Schumer reaps what he sowed

Featured image The Senate has voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett as a Supreme Court Justice. She will be sworn in tonight, probably around the time I finish writing this post. It’s remarkable to me how quickly Mitch McConnell was able to drive this nomination through. I’m also surprised that only one Republican Senator (the embattled Susan Collins) voted against confirming Judge Barrett. President Trump is said by some to be a »

Hamlet of the far north will vote to confirm Judge Barrett

Featured image Lisa Murkowski has announced that she will vote in favor of confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. It now appears that Susan Collins will be the only Republican Senator not to support Barrett’s confirmation. Initially, Murkowski was opposed to confirming Barrett. Her gripe, she said, was with the process. That is, she opposed confirming a Supreme Court Justice, no matter how well qualified, in a presidential election year »

Trump moves to fill Judge Barrett’s court of appeals seat

Featured image The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to advance Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination to the Senate floor. The Senate is expected to vote on Monday, with confirmation seemingly in the bag. The Judiciary Committee vote was unanimous. Democrats boycotted the session. Committee rules require that two members of the minority party to be present for business to be conducted. However, chairman Lindsey Graham proceeded with the vote anyway. “We’re »

Chuck Schumer: Dems will deny GOP a quorum to advance Barrett

Featured image Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says that Democrats will not supply a quorum with which to advance the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Schumer defended this move, saying that Barrett’s nomination is “illegitimate, dangerous and unpopular.” There’s no point debating Schumer on these partisan claims. The question is whether the Democrats can block Barrett’s nomination through this ploy. I don’t think they can. A quorum in »

When is it okay to prevent a woman from speaking?

Featured image After Kamala Harris’ debate with Mike Pence, some female pundits couldn’t contain their glee that Harris had told Pence, on the few occasions when he interrupted her, “I’m speaking.” They saw this as the defining moment of the debate (or claimed to). I wonder how these same female pundits evaluated today’s spectacle of a distinguished female nominee for the Supreme Court being treated as a bystander at her confirmation hearing, »

Dick Durbin’s not so beautiful mind

Featured image In a post below, I complained about how, instead of questioning Amy Coney Barrett, Senators are using her as a prop while they make speeches. Not surprisingly, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a world class grandstander, was the biggest culprit during three hours or so of the hearing that I watched. Sen. Dick Durbin did a fair amount of speechifying, too. Much of it was directed, not at the issue of whether »

Sheldon Whitehouse’s not so beautiful mind

Featured image I skipped yesterday’s hearing on the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. I didn’t want to waste a day listening to speeches by Judiciary Committee members. In theory, today’s hearing is devoted to questions for Judge Barrett. Yet, in the nearly three hours of the hearing I watched, there wasn’t much questioning. Mostly, there was speechifying. If I’m not mistaken, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse devoted all of »

Democrats attack Judge Barrett with bogus talking point

Featured image Hearings on the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court began this morning. It’s my understanding that today’s hearing was devoted to speeches. I didn’t have the stomach to listen to them. A reader who listened to the first few speeches writes: I’m watching the “hearing” about Judge Barrett’s nomination. Senator Leahy is now describing how “Vermonters” are “scared” that Judge Barrett’s nomination will mean that Vermonters »

The Handwringing Tale

Featured image As mentioned here over the weekend, one reason among many that President Trump chose to appoint Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court is that she’s already survived a Democratic attack, and one that was especially ugly in its overt anti-Catholic bigotry. Democrats with sense understand that a reprise of that attack will be a disaster for them. Over the weekend you could see various Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi and »

Why Are Liberals Such Whiny Wusses?

Featured image So as we know, the left is having a collective freakout over the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and they seem to be in competition to see who can disgrace themselves the most, with the Barrett-Is-a-Racist-Because-She-Adopted-Black-Kids caucus off to a strong early lead. And the left is extra mad at Harvard’s Noah Feldman, otherwise a liberal, for publicly praising Barrett. For this sin, Stanford Law Professor »

Reflections on the devolution

Featured image The long descent on which Senate Democrats have taken us now eventuates in the Democrats’ hysteria over the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Neither Chuck Schumer nor any other Senate Democrat is fit to carry Barrett’s briefcase. How have we arrived at this pass? If we were to assign a date to the beginning of the long descent, it might be July 1, 1987. That »

Karma Catches Up to Joe Biden

Featured image I’m starting to wonder whether I should believe in karma for real. There is something fitting about the fact that the Barrett nomination comes at the very moment that the person most responsible for blowing up judicial politics more than 30 years ago is the Democratic nominee for president—Joe Biden. There’s no way he can dodge questions at the first presidential debate next week about Barrett, and I hope Chris »