[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 150 (Wednesday, November 17, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7949-S7952]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, recently I spoke to the Senate on the 
occasion of the consideration of the nomination of Jane Branstetter 
Stranch of Tennessee to the Sixth Circuit. It was nearly 10 months 
after her nomination was favorably reported by the Senate Judiciary 
Committee that Senate Republicans finally consented to a time agreement 
and vote, despite the support of the senior Senator from Tennessee, a 
member of the Republican leadership. Nevertheless, I said then that if 
consideration of the Stranch nomination, after months of needless 
delay, represented a bipartisan willingness to return to the Senate's 
tradition of offering advice and consent without extensive delays, I 
welcomed it. I urged the Senate to consider the other 16 judicial 
nominations then on the Senate Executive Calendar favorably reported by 
the Judiciary Committee without further delay.
  Regrettably, since Judge Stranch was approved by a bipartisan 
majority on September 13, the Senate has not considered a single 
additional judicial nomination, although some were reported as long ago 
as January. Indeed,

[[Page S7950]]

during the rest of this work period the list of judicial nominations 
stalled on the calendar has grown to 23, including 16 that were 
reported by the committee unanimously. Meanwhile judicial vacancies 
around the country continue to rise and now number 104. These include 
48 vacancies that the Judicial Conference has designated as judicial 
emergencies.
  The Senate is well behind the pace set by a Democratic majority in 
the Senate considering President Bush's nominations during his first 2 
years in office. Republicans have allowed the Senate to consider and 
confirm only 41 of President Obama's circuit and district court 
nominations over the last 2 years. In stark contrast, by this date in 
President Bush's second year in office, the Senate with a Democratic 
majority had confirmed 78 of his Federal circuit and district court 
nominations. That number reached 100 by the end of 2002, all considered 
and confirmed during the 17 months I chaired the Senate Judiciary 
Committee.
  During those 17 months, I scheduled 26 hearings for the judicial 
nominees of a Republican President and the Judiciary Committee worked 
diligently to consider them. During the 2 years of the Obama 
administration, I have tried to maintain that same approach, and the 
committee has held 25 hearings for President Obama's Federal circuit 
and district court nominees. I have not altered my approach and neither 
have the Senate Democrats.
  One thing that has changed is that we have been able to hold hearings 
for nominees more regularly because we now receive the paperwork on the 
nominations, the nominee's completed questionnaire, the confidential 
background investigation and the America Bar Association, ABA, peer 
review almost immediately after a nomination is made, allowing us to 
proceed. During 2001 and 2002, President Bush abandoned the procedure 
that President Eisenhower had adopted and that had been used by 
President George H.W. Bush, President Reagan and all Presidents for 
more than 50 years. Instead, President George W. Bush delayed the start 
of the ABA peer review process until after the nomination was sent to 
the Senate. That added weeks and months to the timeline in which 
hearings were able to be scheduled on nominations.
  When I became chairman of the Judiciary Committee midway through 
President Bush's first tumultuous year in office, I worked very hard to 
make sure Senate Democrats did not perpetuate the ``judge wars'' as 
tit-for-tat. Despite that fact that Senate Republicans pocket 
filibustered more than 60 of President Clinton's judicial nominations 
and refused to proceed on them while judicial vacancies skyrocketed 
during the Clinton administration to more than 110, in 2001 and 2002, 
during the 17 months I chaired the committee during President Bush's 
first 2 years in office, the Senate proceeded to confirm 100 of his 
judicial nominees.
  By refusing to proceed on President Clinton's nominations while 
judicial vacancies skyrocketed during the 6 years they controlled the 
pace of nominations, Senate Republicans allowed vacancies to rise to 
more than 110 by the end of the Clinton administration. As a result of 
their strategy, Federal circuit court vacancies doubled. When Democrats 
regained the Senate majority halfway into President Bush's first year 
in office, we turned away from these bad practices. As a result, 
overall judicial vacancies were reduced during the Bush years from more 
than 10 percent to less than four percent. During the Bush years, the 
Federal court vacancies were reduced from 110 to 34 and Federal circuit 
court vacancies were reduced from a high of 32 down to single digits.
  This progress has not continued with a Democratic President back in 
office. Instead, Senate Republicans have returned to the strategy they 
used during the Clinton administration of blocking the nominations of a 
Democratic President, again leading to skyrocketing vacancies. Last 
year the Senate confirmed only 12 Federal circuit and district court 
judges, the lowest total in 50 years. This year we have yet to confirm 
30 Federal circuit and district judges. We are not even keeping up with 
retirements and attrition. As a result, judicial vacancies are, again, 
over 100 and, again, more than 10 percent.
  This trend should alarm the American people who expect justice from 
the Federal courts. I will ask consent to have printed in the Record at 
the conclusion of my statement a recent column by Attorney General Eric 
Holder about the cost to the American system of justice. He writes:

       The federal judicial system that has been a rightful source 
     of pride for the United States--the system on which we all 
     depend for a prompt and fair hearing of our cases when we 
     need to call on the law--is stressed to the breaking point.
       Last year, 259,000 civil cases and 75,000 criminal cases 
     were filed in the federal courts, enough to tax the abilities 
     of the judiciary even when it is fully staffed. But today 
     there are 103 judicial vacancies--nearly one in eight seats 
     on the bench. Men and women who need their day in court must 
     stand in longer and longer lines.

  I will also ask consent to have printed in the Record at the 
conclusion of my statement a recent article that appeared on Slate by 
Dahlia Lithwick and Professor Carl Tobias, pointing out that thousands 
of hard-working Americans seeking justice in our courts bear the cost 
of justice delayed and denied as a result of vacant courtrooms and 
overburdened judges. Many senior and retired judges continue to try to 
carry the workload, but we fall farther behind. They write:

       It stands to reason that if you can't get into a courtroom, 
     if the docket is too packed for your case to be heard 
     promptly, or if the judge lacks sufficient time to address 
     the issues raised, justice suffers. This will directly affect 
     thousands of ordinary Americans plaintiffs and defendants 
     whose liberty, safety, or job may be at stake and for whom 
     justice may arrive too late, if at all. In some 
     jurisdictions, civil litigants may well wait two to three 
     years before going to trial. In jurisdictions with the most 
     vacancies, it will often take far longer for published 
     opinions to be issued, or courts will come to rely on more 
     unpublished opinions. More worrisome still, because the 
     Speedy Trial Act requires that courts give precedence to 
     criminal cases, some backlogged courts have had to stop 
     hearing civil cases altogether.

  Earlier this month, I spoke to the Senate about the serious warning 
issued by Justice Anthony Kennedy at the Ninth Circuit Conference about 
skyrocketing judicial vacancies in California and throughout the 
country. He said, ``It's important for the public to understand that 
the excellence of the federal judiciary is at risk.'' He noted that 
``if judicial excellence is cast upon a sea of congressional 
indifference, the rule of law is imperiled.'' A recent editorial in the 
Los Angeles Times focuses on the acute problems in the Ninth Circuit 
and urges the Senate to act on three nominations to fill vacancies in 
Federal courts in California.
  President Obama has not made nominations opposed by home State 
Senators but has, instead, reached out and worked with home State 
Senators from both parties. Likewise, I have respected the minority. We 
have tried to develop and improve the cooperation between parties and 
branches. It is disappointing to see others take the opposite approach. 
We could help to address this vacancies crisis just by acting on the 
judicial nominations ready for action but which remain stalled on the 
Executive Calendar.
  I have worked closely with the ranking Republicans on the Judiciary 
Committee while serving as its chairman. I have enjoyed my relationship 
with the current Ranking Republican, and I have often thanked Senator 
Sessions for his cooperation in working with me to hold hearings and 
consider nominations in committee. I was disappointed by his statement 
to the Senate last week, however. He is entitled to his own perspective 
on these matters, of course. I feel very strongly that Democrats in the 
Senate treated President Bush's judicial nominations better and more 
fairly than Republicans had those of President Clinton, and certainly 
better than President Obama's nominees are currently being treated. The 
comparison of vacancy rates and the number of judges confirmed in 
President Bush's first 2 years with a Democratic majority--100, 
including 17 circuit court nominations--bear that out. I also believe 
that there was a clear difference in the smaller number of judicial 
nominees opposed by Democratic Senators and the open manner in which 
Democrats made clear the basis of their opposition in contrast to the 
secret holds and across the board nature of the Republican opposition. 
Another indisputable fact is the judicial vacancy crisis during the 
Clinton administration that has been recreated since President Obama 
was elected. By contrast, during the Bush administration

[[Page S7951]]

Senate Democrats worked to reduce vacancies and the result was that we 
did so dramatically.
  Indeed, much of Senator Sessions' statement last Wednesday reads like 
an attempted justification for some sort of payback. He does concede 
that we proceeded promptly to confirm President Bush's district court 
nominations, but unfortunately attributes a sinister cast even to those 
actions. Sometimes the statement does not merely attribute the wrong 
motive or mischaracterize what happened, but is a misstatement of the 
facts. For example, the Senator suggested that the Senate confirmed 
only 6 of President Bush's 25 circuit court nominees. In fact, we 
worked hard to confirm 17 circuit court nominees in the 17 months that 
I chaired the committee during 2001 and 2002.
  By contrast, only 11 of President Obama's circuit court nominees have 
been confirmed these 2 years--this, despite the fact that 17 have, so 
far, been reported by the Judiciary Committee. Five of the six circuit 
court nominations stalled and still being prevented from being 
considered were reported unanimously, one as long ago as January. This 
is another good illustration of the difference in how Republican and 
Democratic Senators have treated judicial nominations by the President 
of the other party.
  Democratic Senators did not stall such consensus nominations for 
spite or payback. And when we opposed nominations we said why. Unlike 
President Bush, President Obama has not made a series of judicial 
nominees designed to pack the courts with ideologues. Instead, he has 
worked with home State Senators and selected highly qualified, 
predominately moderate nominees.
  Nor have we sought to force through nominations by ignoring the rules 
and traditions of the Senate or the committee, as Republicans did. 
Those practices are detailed in my contemporaneous statements at the 
time but ignored in the statement made last Wednesday. For example, 
when I became chairman in 2001, I made home State Senators' ``blue 
slips'' public for the first time, preventing Senators from anonymously 
blocking committee action on judicial nominees. That was a bad practice 
that led to the pocket filibusters of more than 60 of President 
Clinton's judicial nominees. Also ignored in last Wednesday's statement 
was the history of earlier filibusters, such as that of the Supreme 
Court nomination of Abe Fortas to be the Chief Justice and of President 
Clinton's nominations to the Ninth Circuit.
  The statement was in many regards ahistorical or anti-historical. In 
complaining about a handful of Fourth Circuit nominees in the last 2 
years of President Bush's administration, the statement ignored the 
fact that we had broken the logjam caused by 8 years of Republican 
obstruction of President Clinton's nominations to that circuit and that 
the examples cited were after vacancies had been reduced and in light 
of opposition from home State Senators to some of the nominees. Indeed, 
we might have made even more progress had President Bush not proceeded 
for years to make several extreme nominations. The statement also seems 
unaware of the work we did to resolve the impasse in the Sixth Circuit, 
resulting in every single vacancy in the circuit being filled by 
President Bush.
  Regrettably, the Senate this year is not being allowed to consider 
the consensus, mainstream judicial nominees favorably reported from the 
Judiciary Committee. It has taken nearly five times as long to consider 
President Obama's judicial nominations as it did to consider President 
Bush's during his first 2 years in office. During the first 2 years of 
the Bush administration, the 100 judges confirmed were considered by 
the Senate an average of 25 days from being reported by the Judiciary 
Committee. The average time for confirmed circuit court nominees was 26 
days. By contrast, the average time for the 41 Federal circuit and 
district and circuit court judges confirmed since President Obama took 
office is 90 days and the average time for circuit nominees is 148 
days--and that disparity is increasing.
  Senate Republicans have refused to allow prompt consideration even to 
those consensus nominations that are reported unanimously and without 
opposition by the Judiciary Committee. There is no good reason to hold 
up consideration for weeks and months of nominees reported without 
opposition from the Judiciary Committee. I have been urging since last 
year that these consensus nominees be considered promptly and 
confirmed.
  In 2001 and 2002, the first 2 years of the Bush administration, the 
Senate with a Democratic majority confirmed 100 judicial nominees. We 
obviously will not reach that level or reduce judicial vacancies as 
effectively as we did in those 2 years. What we can do is consider the 
23 judicial nominations already on the calendar. That could bring us to 
64 Federal circuit and district court confirmations. If we also 
completed action on the 11 additional judicial nominees who 
participated in September hearings, that could bring us to a 
respectable total of 75 circuit and district court confirmations. That 
would be in the range of judicial confirmations during President 
Reagan's first 2 years (88) and President George H.W. Bush's, 72, but 
pale in comparison to the 100 confirmed in the first 2 years of the 
George W. Bush administration or those confirmed during President 
Clinton's first 2 years, 126.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
those materials to which I referred.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From The Washington Post, Sep. 28, 2010]

            Now Vacant: A Confirmation Crisis in our Courts

                        (By Eric H. Holder, Jr.)

       More than a year ago, President Obama nominated Jane 
     Stranch, a respected Nashville labor lawyer, to a seat on the 
     U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. That vacancy had 
     been declared a ``judicial emergency'' because the Sixth 
     Circuit does not have enough judges to promptly or 
     effectively handle the court's caseload, leading to serious 
     delays in the administration of justice to people in 
     Tennessee and other parts of the 6th Circuit. Yet despite the 
     fact that Judge Stranch enjoyed the support of both of her 
     Republican home-state senators and bipartisan support in the 
     Senate Judiciary Committee, she was forced to wait almost 300 
     days for an up-or-down vote by the full Senate. When she 
     finally received that vote earlier this month, she was 
     confirmed overwhelmingly.
       Unfortunately, her story is all too typical. Nominee after 
     nominee has languished in the Senate for many months, only to 
     be confirmed by wide bipartisan margins when they finally do 
     receive a vote. As Congress finishes its last week in session 
     before the November elections, our judicial system 
     desperately needs the Senate to act.
       Today, 23 judicial nominees--honest and qualified men and 
     women eager to serve the cause of justice--are enduring long 
     delays while awaiting up-or-down votes, even though 16 of 
     them received unanimous bipartisan approval in the Judiciary 
     Committee. The confirmation process is so twisted in knots 
     that we are losing ground--there are more vacancies today 
     than when President Obama took office. The men and women 
     whose confirmations have been delayed have received high 
     marks from the nonpartisan American Bar Association, have the 
     support of their home-state senators (including Republicans), 
     and have received little or no opposition in committee. These 
     outstanding lawyers and jurists deserve better, as do 
     litigants who bring cases to increasingly understaffed 
     courts.
       In the Eastern District of California, in Sacramento, there 
     are 1,097 cases filed per judge annually. Six months ago, the 
     president nominated California Judge Kimberly Mueller to help 
     relieve that workload. Judge Mueller is a distinguished 
     jurist with seven years' experience as a magistrate judge, a 
     unanimous rating of well qualified from the American Bar 
     Association and the unanimous backing of the Senate Judiciary 
     Committee. Yet she has still not been confirmed.
       For the 4th Circuit, the president nominated Albert Diaz, 
     an experienced state court judge and former Marine and 
     officer in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps, to a seat 
     on the U.S. Court of Appeals that has been vacant for more 
     than three years. He was approved unanimously by the Senate 
     Judiciary Committee in January and is strongly backed by both 
     of North Carolina's senators. Yet Judge Diaz has waited 242 
     days for a vote by the full Senate.
       In the rotunda outside my Justice Department office, it is 
     inscribed that ``The United States wins its point whenever 
     justice is done its citizens in the courts.'' As attorney 
     general, I have the privilege of leading a strong department 
     in which public servants seek justice every day. But the 
     quotation that has greeted attorneys general for the past 70 
     years serves as a reminder that justice depends on effective 
     courts. The federal judicial system that has been a rightful 
     source of pride for the United States--the system on which we 
     all depend for a prompt and fair hearing of our cases when we 
     need to call on the law--is stressed to the breaking point.

[[Page S7952]]

       Last year, 259,000 civil cases and 75,000 criminal cases 
     were filed in the federal courts, enough to tax the abilities 
     of the judiciary even when it is fully staffed. But today 
     there are 103 judicial vacancies--nearly one in eight seats 
     on the bench. Men and women who need their day in court must 
     stand in longer and longer lines.
       The problem is about to get worse. Because of projected 
     retirements and other demographic changes, the number of 
     annual new vacancies in the next decade will be 33 percent 
     greater than in the past three decades. If the historic pace 
     of Senate confirmations continues, one third of the federal 
     judiciary will be vacant by 2020. If we stay on the pace that 
     the Senate has set in the past two years--the slowest pace of 
     confirmations in history--fully half the federal judiciary 
     will be vacant by 2020.
       As Justice Anthony Kennedy recently noted, the ``rule of 
     law is imperiled'' if these important judicial vacancies 
     remain unfilled. In 2005, Senate Republican leader Mitch 
     McConnell called on Congress to return to the way the Senate 
     operated for over 200 years, and give nominees who have 
     majority support in the Senate an up-or-down floor vote.
       I agree. It's time to address the crisis in our courts. 
     It's time to confirm these judges.
                                  ____


                    [From Slate.com, Sep. 27, 2010]

  Vacant Stares--Why Don't Americans Worry About How an Understaffed 
              Federal Bench is Hazardous to Their Health?

                  (By Dahlia Lithwick and Carl Tobias)

       The prospect of a federal bench with nearly one out of 
     every eight judicial seats vacant should scare the pants off 
     every American. Yet few Americans are as worked up about it 
     as those of us who think and worry about it a lot. Our 
     argument was already a tough sell before the threat of global 
     terrorism and a collapsed economy ate up every moment of the 
     national political conversation. Now a 10 percent judicial 
     vacancy rate seems like a Code Beige emergency in a Code Red 
     world.
       Part of the problem is politics: It has often seemed that 
     the only people screaming for speedy judicial confirmations 
     are panicked because it's their judges being blocked. The 
     party not currently in control of the White House and Senate 
     often sees less crisis than opportunity in a dwindling bench. 
     Moreover, when the entire judicial selection process has been 
     as fiercely politicized as it is has become lately, most 
     Americans may suspect that empty benches might be better for 
     democracy than full ones. But judicial vacancies are 
     disastrous for Americans, all Americans, and not merely for 
     partisan reasons, but also for practical ones. That's why in 
     a recent speech, Justice Anthony Kennedy warned: ``[I]t's 
     important for the public to understand that the excellence of 
     the federal judiciary is at risk. If judicial excellence is 
     cast upon a sea of congressional indifference, the rule of 
     law is imperiled.''
       Yet this issue, which seems to light up editorial writers 
     and Brookings scholars with such ease, appears to leave the 
     rest of you cold. So here we are taking one last crack at 
     scaring your pants off with some strictly nonpartisan facts 
     about the dangers of judicial vacancies.
       Justice delayed truly is justice denied. There are 
     approximately 850 lower-court federal judgeships, of which 
     more than 100 are currently vacant, while 49 openings in 22 
     states are classified ``judicial emergencies.'' Eighty-three 
     of these are on the district courts--the trial courts that 
     decide every important federal question in the country, on 
     issues ranging from civil rights to environmental, economic, 
     privacy, and basic freedoms. Whereas judicial obstruction 
     once reached no further than the federal appeals courts, for 
     the first time even noncontroversial district court nominees 
     are being stalled by arcane Senate reindeer games. It stands 
     to reason that if you can't get into a courtroom, if the 
     docket is too packed for your case to be heard promptly, or 
     if the judge lacks sufficient time to address the issues 
     raised, justice suffers. This will directly affect thousands 
     of ordinary Americans--plaintiffs and defendants--whose 
     liberty, safety, or job may be at stake and for whom justice 
     may arrive too late, if at all. In some jurisdictions, civil 
     litigants may well wait two to three years before going to 
     trial. In jurisdictions with the most vacancies, it will 
     often take far longer for published opinions to be issued, or 
     courts will come to rely on more unpublished opinions. More 
     worrisome still, because the Speedy Trial Act requires that 
     courts give precedence to criminal cases, some backlogged 
     courts have had to stop hearing civil cases altogether.
       Overtaxed federal judges can't do justice at some point. 
     Take, for instance, the federal court based in Denver, where 
     five active judges are doing the work that ought to be done 
     by seven. The Judicial Conference of the United States 
     suggests the court needs another judgeship and has labeled 
     the two vacancies a ``judicial emergency'' because the judges 
     there each carry 593 instead of the 430 cases deemed optimal. 
     Alliance for Justice today put out a new report on the 
     jurisdictions designated as judicial emergencies. Among their 
     findings: Judicial emergencies have more than doubled over 
     the first 20 months of the Obama administration, and judicial 
     emergencies now exist in 30 states. In many jurisdictions, 
     judges who should have retired years ago are still actively 
     hearing cases on courts that can't afford to lose even one 
     more judge. This places unfair, undue pressure on every 
     federal judge now sitting. Most judges have been stoic in the 
     face of mounting work and caseloads. Few openly complain, 
     lest they appear to be taking sides in the confirmation wars. 
     Still the crisis is so urgent that some judges have begun to 
     speak out: In May, Chief Judge Wiley Daniel of the U.S. 
     District Court in Denver wrote to the majority and minority 
     leaders in the Senate urging prompt confirmation and 
     explaining that lingering vacancies impede public access to 
     justice. Six highly regarded retired federal judges at the 
     same time wrote to the senators that the current gridlock is 
     not tenable for a nation ``that believes in the rule of 
     law.'' In 1997 and again in 2001, Chief Justice William 
     Rehnquist admonished the White House and Senate, then in 
     control of opposite parties, to fill the many vacancies for 
     the good of the nation. Imagine how you would feel if your 
     heart surgeon had to perform thousands of surgeries each day. 
     That's how worried you should be about federal judges forced 
     to manage ever-expanding caseloads.
       Potential judges won't agree to be nominated. Depending on 
     who's doing the calculations, the average length of time 
     between being nominated and confirmed has more than 
     quadrupled in the Obama administration. As a result of 
     procedural shenanigans in the Senate, nominees may remain in 
     limbo for months, with careers and law practices stuck on 
     hold as they await a vote that may never come. Indeed, 6th 
     Circuit Judge Jane Stranch waited 13 months for a 71-21 vote, 
     while Judge Albert Diaz, a 4th Circuit nominee, has waited 
     nearly 11. As the wait for confirmation drags on ever longer, 
     the best nominees will be inclined to start to wonder whether 
     it's worth the bother. Many excellent potential nominees may 
     not even entertain the prospect of judicial service anymore. 
     As President Stephen Zack, president of the American Bar 
     Association, recently put it: ``The current gridlock 
     discourages anyone from subjecting themselves to the judicial 
     nomination process.''
       The more seats remain vacant, the greater the incentive to 
     politicize the process. In the George W. Bush administration, 
     the judicial-vacancy rate dropped to 4 percent. Now it's up 
     to 10 percent again. The stakes become higher and higher as 
     the opportunity to significantly reshape the federal bench 
     becomes more real. The incentive for a Senate minority to 
     obstruct nominees also grows with the vacancy rate. The party 
     not in control of the White House invariably believes it will 
     recapture the presidency in the next election and thus has 
     the opportunity to appoint judges more to its liking. 
     Accordingly, each nominee obstructed now is another vacancy 
     reserved for the out-of-power party's president. These 
     dynamics are evident with the midterm elections approaching: 
     The process has now essentially shut down. That's why only 
     one appellate nominee even received floor consideration 
     between April 23 and Sept. 12 of this year.
       The rampant politicization of the selection process is 
     undermining public respect for the co-equal branches of 
     government. President George W. Bush's use of the White House 
     for a ceremony introducing his first 11 appellate nominees 
     and his promotion of his judicial nominees exacerbated the 
     sense that federal judgeships were a political prize for the 
     winning party. Obama has attempted to depoliticize the 
     confirmation process by naming judges generally regarded as 
     centrist and moderate--much to the dismay of many liberals. 
     But it has changed nothing. When the Senate confirmation 
     process degenerates into cartoonish charges of judicial 
     unfitness, name-calling, recriminations, and endless 
     paybacks, the consequences go far beyond the legitimacy of 
     Congress, to the legitimacy of the courts themselves. As 
     courts are batted around for partisan political purposes, 
     nominees and judges appear to be purely political actors--no 
     different than members of Congress or the president. That 
     doesn't just hurt judges. It hurts those of us who rely on 
     judges to deliver just outcomes.
       Americans watching the confirmation wars won't ultimately 
     recall which president named which judge or what the final 
     vote was. But they may begin to accept as normal an 
     inaccurate and deeply politicized vision of judges as a bunch 
     of alternating partisan hacks and a federal bench that is 
     limping, rather than racing, to do justice.

                          ____________________