RNLA Executive Director Michael Thielen wrote today in the Daily Caller about how Senate Democrats are attacking and delaying President Trump's excellent judicial nominees:
Thirty years ago, the Senate rejected Judge Robert Bork for the Supreme Court after a series of unprecedented and often untrue attacks by Democrats on one of the nation’s foremost legal scholars. Today, the Democrats and their allies are arguably treating judicial nominees worse. For while the attacks were one-sided, the vote to defeat Judge Bork was at least bipartisan. Today, Democrats and their allies make no such efforts to actually defeat nominees they do not like; instead, they attempt to obstruct and sully the character of nominees.
But Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley have expertly led the Senate and are not allowing the Democrats to prevail:
Fortunately, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley does not have unlimited patience with Democrats’ games and obstruction. Thanks to the leadership of Chairman Grassley, 18 nominees are now on the floor awaiting a vote. And the need is great. There are still over 140 vacancies on the federal bench, with 64 classified as judicial emergencies.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has also tired of Senate Democrats’ partisanship and has made the confirmation of judges a priority, with four Circuit Court nominees to be confirmed by the end of this week. As of publication, the new Judge Barrett of the Seventh Circuit and Judge Larsen of the Sixth Circuit have just been confirmed.
Despite the Democrats’ obstruction and delays, Chairman Grassley and Leader McConnell are keeping the process moving, understanding how important these principled nominees are to the American people. Democrats have forced cloture votes on all confirmed judicial nominees from President Trump, compared to none at this point in the Obama, George W. Bush, Clinton, or Reagan administrations. Of course, these cloture votes are simply a delaying tactic, since the Democrats abolished the filibuster for judicial nominations lower than Supreme Court in 2013.
Mr. Thielen provides examples from several currently pending and recently confirmed nominees, including Scott Palk, just confirmed for the Western District of Oklahoma; David Stras, nominated for the Eighth Circuit; Ryan Bounds, nominated for the Ninth Circuit; Amy Barrett, just confirmed to the Seventh Circuit; and Steven Grasz, nominated to the Eighth Circuit. Democrats have baselessly attacked all of them, including Palk who was first nominated to the seat by President Obama, but Leader McConnell and Chairman Grassley are working to ensure that all these superb nominees are confirmed.
Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings for two circuit court and two district court nominees, along with the Eric Drieband and his nomination to head DOJ's Civil Rights Division. The district court nominees were largely left unquestioned, with Senator Feinstein stating that their records largely "speaks for itself."
However, the Democratic Senators and left wing groups focused the brunt of their baseless attacks on the Circuit Court nominees Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larson for the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and Notre Dame law professor Amy Coney Barrett for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Ed Whelan of the National Review called the hearings line of these efforts "hilarious" and "buffoonery" despite having outstanding credentials and bipartisan praise for their nominations. Mr. Whelan writes:
For example, People For the American Way complains of Larsen: "Also of concern is the signal Larsen sent about her conservative ideology during her campaign for the Michigan Supreme Court last year. Her website stated that “judges should interpret the laws according to what they say, not according to what the judges wish they would say. Judges are supposed to interpret the laws; they are not supposed to make them.” This is coded language used by ultra-conservative jurists and activists to signal a willingness to issue rulings that (among other things) do not recognize the constitutional right to abortion or the fundamental humanity and equality of LGBTQ people." [Emphasis added.]
Yeah, sure. And Justice Sotomayor was using that same “coded language” when she testified at her confirmation hearing that “The task of a judge is not to make the law—it is to apply the law.” And so did Justice Kagan when she proclaimed that “we are all textualists now" . . . [and] countless other Democratic judicial appointees over the years.
The Alliance for Justice claims that Barrett “believes and has stated that judges can and should put their personal beliefs ahead of the law and Constitution when carrying out their duties.” It cites its own report as authority for that claim. But when you finally get past AFJ’s repetition of that claim to its actual report, you learn that AFJ is complaining that “in a 1998 law review article, Barrett argued that federal judges who are faithful to Catholic teaching should recuse themselves from capital cases because they are morally precluded from considering or imposing the death penalty.” (Emphasis added.) (The law-review article is here; AFJ doesn’t bother to include a link.) . . . In short, far from arguing that “judges can and should put their personal beliefs ahead of the law and Constitution when carrying out their duties,” Barrett was arguing that Catholic judges “are morally precluded from enforcing the death penalty” and should therefore recuse themselves from cases in which they might be required to do so. . . .
As Barrett’s co-author John H. Garvey—former Notre Dame law professor and current president of Catholic University—writes in an op-ed today, “I never thought I’d see the day when a coalition of left-wing groups attacked a Republican judicial nominee for opposing the death penalty.” Even more amazing is that AFJ adopts the loopy position that a judge who complies with recusal obligations is placing himself “at odds with the very essence of the [judicial] oath.”
Instead of looking at qualifications of President Trump's judicial nominees, the Democrats rather use innuendo in an attempt to besmudge their credentials as part of their attempt to obstruct the Trump Administrations efforts to govern and fill vital openings in our judicial system.
In the Daily Caller, RNLA President Elliot Berke penned an article calling for the fair and swift confirmation of his friend and former colleague Eric S. Dreiband to lead the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division as Assistant Attorney General. Mr. Berke wrote the following of his friend:
One of the primary criticisms of Eric is that in private practice he’s been the “go to lawyer” for “big corporations.” As General Counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission during the Bush administration, Eric actually litigated against companies accused of discrimination. By the way, he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate for that position.
Eric served as Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. In that capacity, he directed the federal government’s enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Migrant Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, and other federal labor laws. For his contribution to the department’s efforts to update the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime exemption regulations, he received the Secretary of Labor’s Exceptional Achievement Award. Eric also received the Secretary of Labor’s Compliance Assistance Award for leading the Labor Department’s efforts to increase compliance with the federal child labor laws.
Eric is a skilled and able attorney who represents his client’s interests zealously, whether his client is a corporation or the American people. He respects the law as written, and if confirmed as head of the Civil Rights Division, will seek to enforce federal civil rights laws to their full extent without following an activist or partisan agenda, just as he did at EEOC and the Department of Labor.
But as I’ve told the Senate Judiciary Committee, it is my personal and professional opinion that Eric will be an effective advocate for the protection of civil rights and for the prosecution of civil rights abuses. My hope is that he receives a fair hearing and swift Senate consideration, and that all sides realize what a talented lawyer they will have to advance the cause of justice.
Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a string of catch-up hearings on nominees by President Trump who were announced before Congress's summer recess. The RNLA urges the swift confirmation of Eric Dreiband, Justice Larsen of Michigan for the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the other well-qualified nominees who are currently held up by Senate Democrats obstructing President Trump's nominees.
RNLA Executive Director Michael Thielen wrote today in the Daily Caller about how Senate Democrats are obstructing and delaying President Trump's nominees on an unprecedented scale:
Last month, President Trump claimed that the confirmation process for his cabinet had been “record-setting long — and I mean record-setting long — with some of the finest people in our country being delayed and delayed and delayed.” Trump’s cabinet nominees were pending with the Senate for 25 days, on average, compared to zero to two days, on average, for the last three presidents. Fourteen of them went through the cloture process, compared to just seven of President Obama’s cabinet nominees during his entire tenure. Even the Washington Post recognized that Trump has “faced unusually sustained opposition for a new president” and gave his claim a rare Geppetto Checkmark, reserved for claims that are “surprisingly correct.” . . .
No Democratic senator has returned a blue slip, a Senate tradition allowing senators to give approval for a judicial nominee from their state to move forward, for any of President Trump’s judicial nominees. Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen was nominated to the Sixth Circuit back on May 8. Michigan voters re-elected Justice Larsen with 57 percent of the vote in 2016, and she is widely respected. Yet Michigan has two Democrat senators, and her nomination may be delayed so that they can toe the party line laid down by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Only three of Trump’s nominee’s to the U.S. Department of Justice have been confirmed. . . . Noel Francisco’s nomination to be solicitor general, the number three position in the Justice Department, has been pending since April 24. . . . Most recently, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has signaled that Democrats intend to engage in wholesale obstruction of all U.S. Attorney nominees. . . .
Democrats are traditionally the party of big government, looking to government for solutions to all of life’s problems, big and small. But what we have learned since President Trump took office is that Democrats only look to the government when they are in control of it. They are perfectly happy to obstruct government’s operation—and ignore the will of the people as expressed through our system of representative government—when they do not control the levers of power.
Mr. Thielen calls for an end to the delay and attacks tactics and for the American people to tell Democratic senators that they oppose "obstruction of qualified nominees in the Senate."
