The Senate’s rejection Monday of Oklahoma Magistrate Judge Robert Bacharach for a U.S. Court of Appeals seat sent a clear message to the three other appellate nominees hoping for a vote on the Senate floor:
Fuhgeddaboudit.
President Obama has nominated fewer judges than Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and the Senate has confirmed a smaller percentage of his nominees.
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Ditto for 16 U.S. District Court nominees also pending in committee. The odds of judicial confirmations after this August recess are exceptionally slim — at best. The Cubs will win the pennant before you’ll be putting on the black robes.
No nominees were confirmed after the August recess when President Bill Clinton was running for reelection in 1996 and only three when President George W. Bush was running for a second term in 2004 — although five got in during the lame-duck session.
Still, a whopping 13 George H.W. Bush nominees, including two for appellate seats, were confirmed after the August recess in 1992, according to Senate Judiciary Committee statistics.
Four Clinton judicial picks were confirmed after the recess in 2000, when Bush II and Al Gore were running, and 10 Bush judges were confirmed during the race between Barack Obama and John McCain, the committee reports.
So with the numbers pretty much set, let’s recap.
President Obama, who started off slowly in getting nominations up to the Senate, never fully caught up. He’s nominated fewer judges (200) than either Bush (228) or Clinton (245) on Aug. 1 of their fourth year in office, according to committee statistics.
At the same time, the Senate has confirmed a smaller percentage of Obama nominees than Clinton nominees — 78 percent, compared with 80.8 percent — and a much smaller percentage than in the Bush administration (86.4).
As a result, Obama, with 78 vacancies, may be the first president in decades to end his first term with more judicial vacancies than when he started.
At this point in their first terms, Clinton had 58 judicial vacancies and Bush had 28. (The latter figure is pretty much full employment.)
Liberals have criticized Obama for not having pushed harder for his nominees, noting that Bush issued a lengthy statement at a 2002 news conference blasting “a handful” of Senate Democrats for holding up his judicial nominees because they “fear the outcome of a fair vote in the full Senate.”
“The Senate has an obligation to provide fair hearings and prompt votes to all nominees,” Bush said, “no matter who controls the Senate or who controls the White House.”
Obama did, however, mention Senate delays in a State of the Union address and in a Saturday radio address, we were told. And Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) intends to keep moving nominees this fall. Well, who knows? Deals are always possible.
But, after those recess appointments of the consumer finance watchdog and some labor folks in January, furious Republicans are not feeling particularly cooperative on appointments.
Spoof, not spook
By design, the CIA isn’t necessarily the most . . . transparent of government agencies. So it’s difficult to imagine the home of spooks and spies would take to Twitter, the epicenter of oversharing.
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