WASHINGTON — In a blistering rebuke, President Bush said Thursday that the Senate’s procedure for approving federal judges has become too political and discourages qualified nominees from being considered.
“The Senate is no longer asking the right question, whether a nominee is someone who will uphold our Constitution and laws,” Bush said Thursday night to the Federalist Society, a conservative group that emphasizes legal matters.
“Instead, nominees are asked to guarantee specific outcomes of cases that might come before the court. If they refuse — as they should — they often find their nomination ends up in limbo instead of on the Senate floor.”
Bush said the confirmation process unfairly tarnishes the reputations of good candidates.
“Lawyers approached about being nominated will politely decline because of the ugliness, uncertainty and delay that now characterize the confirmation process,” the president said.
Bush announced he has chosen Rod Rosenstein, the top federal prosecutor in Maryland, to fill a vacancy on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has handled some of the country’s biggest terrorism cases. He also nominated U.S. District Judge Gene Pratter for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to a seat on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
With the latest nominations, there will be 11 appeals court nominations pending in the Senate.
Also speaking at the Federalist Society meeting, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas joined in the criticism of the confirmation process. His nomination was nearly derailed by a Democratic-controlled Senate in 1991.
“We’re doing great damage. I fear how much damage we will do to our judiciary over time,” Thomas said in response to a question in a crowded hotel ballroom where he talked about and signed his new book.
Thomas was accused of sexual harassment by a former employee, Anita Hill, and has repeatedly denied her allegations. He said at the time that the Senate Judiciary Committee conducted a “high-tech lynching” by trying to bring him down.
He said Justice Byron White told him that just 10 days elapsed between White’s nomination by President Kennedy and his swearing-in in 1962. “What are we doing that’s improved the system we had in place for 200 years, and I dare say nothing,” Thomas said to sustained applause.
Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the Judiciary Committee’s ranking Republican, said Bush’s rhetoric was strong considering there still was hope for getting some nominees confirmed during the final year of Bush’s presidency.
“A war of words is not productive,” Specter said.
Bush’s swipe at the Democratic-run Senate comes amid mounting White House frustration over the president’s stalled nominations to the federal courts. It also is part of a clear pattern by Bush to condemn Congress for not getting its work done, a strategy the White House believes gives it the upper hand.
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