Barack Obama is attempting to pack the District of Columbia Appellate Court. The matter should be of great concern but has been eclipsed by the sequence of other scandals being brought to light recently. For a variety of reasons the DC Appellate Court can be both the practical arbiter and gate keeper for a lot of important challenges to federal legislative enactments and other matters.
Carrie Severino is chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network and previously a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. Writing in Friday’s USA Today’s Weekend Edition she lays out important facts about the Obama / Democrat agenda and their manipulative hypocrisy. Here are some points from the entirely worthwhile article.
- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is the nation’s second most important federal court.
- Democrats are angry that the ideologically split court (4 t0 4) because it has enforced constitutional limits on the president.
- They’re trying to fill the D.C. Circuit with ideological cronies using the ruse the court is overworked.
- The DC Circuit is significantly underworked and not in need of more judges
- As of late May, the Senate had confirmed 193 lower court nominees and blocked only two. As the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking member, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, put it: “Who can complain about achieving 99%?”
- President Bush’s circuit nominees waited an average of 283 days for confirmation, while President Obama’s have waited 240 days. Although almost 70% of federal vacancies (55 of 79), including 75% of “judicial emergencies” (24 of 32), have no nominee . . . the president has the power to nominate judges, not the Senate’s minority party.
DLH with R Mall
Our cartoon postscript courtesy HopeNChangeCartoons.com
Call-to-Distraction
