Conservatives' Grip on Key Virginia Court Is at Risk

White House officials blamed Senate Democrats for the logjam. "The president has nominated several highly qualified people to fill vacancies on the 4th Circuit, and the Democrats have succeeded in each instance in blocking them," White House spokeswoman Dana M. Perino said. "We will continue to work to find highly qualified nominees and look forward to their confirmations."

The overall struggle for control of the federal courts is expected to grow even fiercer as Democrats take charge of the Senate with a razor-thin majority, assuming that Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), who has been hospitalized in recent days, continues in office. Although some conservatives blame Bush for failing to reshape the lower courts as effectively as he has the Supreme Court, others are joining him in aiming frustration at Democrats, who have used their minority power to block 4th Circuit and other appointments.

A victory by a Democrat in the 2008 presidential election, Republicans and legal experts say, could accelerate a philosophical shift in the court. "Imagine the people Hillary Clinton would appoint to the 4th Circuit," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond.

The first of the current 4th Circuit vacancies has lingered since 1994, when Judge J. Dickson Phillips Jr. took senior status. Bush's nominee, U.S. District Judge Terrence W. Boyle Jr., has not overcome strong Democratic opposition.

In 2000, Judge Francis D. Murnaghan Jr. died. Bush nominated Virginia conservative Claude A. Allen in 2003, but he also was blocked by Democrats. Allen later resigned as Bush's top domestic policy adviser and pleaded guilty to shoplifting charges. Bush has not nominated anyone else for that vacancy.

Conservatives were then shocked when Luttig resigned in May to take a top corporate job at Boeing Co. Bush has nominated no one to replace him. Chief Judge William W. Wilkins Jr., a Ronald Reagan appointee who was the first chairman of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, recently announced that he will take senior status in July, creating a fourth vacancy. The new chief judge will be Karen Williams of South Carolina, the court's first female chief judge. She was appointed by President George H.W. Bush.

Another Republican appointee, H. Emory Widener Jr., 83, is planning to take senior status when his successor is confirmed. But Bush's nominee, Pentagon general counsel William J. Haynes II, has drawn strong opposition from Democrats and even from Republican Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.).

Even though the 11 judges who would remain by summer are split 6-5 in favor of Republican appointees, some court observers say that Democrats might gain effective control because Judge Allyson K. Duncan often votes with the court's moderate-to-liberal bloc. She was appointed by Bush in 2003, with strong support from John Edwards, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina and vice presidential candidate.

Yet predicting the court's precise direction is difficult. University of Pittsburgh law professor Arthur Hellman, for example, said two Clinton appointees -- judges William B. Traxler Jr. and Robert B. King -- are "fairly conservative." Hellman and some Republicans expressed surprise that Bush has not moved to fill Luttig's seat and keeps renominating Boyle and Haynes when they couldn't win confirmation in a Republican-led Senate.

Staff writer Peter Baker contributed to this report.