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Obama District Court Vacancies So High They're 'Breaking Historic Patterns,' Report Finds
WASHINGTON -- Vacancies at district courts are so high right now that they're "breaking with historical patterns" and burdening the judicial system like never before, according to a report released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.
The report, which analyzed data on district court vacancies and judicial workloads since 1992, spotlights differences in the pattern of judicial vacancies under President Barack Obama and under other recent presidents. Typically, a district court sees a brief peak in vacancies after a presidential election, followed by a sharp decline in later years, the report states. But under Obama, those vacancies never returned to their previous level after a spike in 2009, and they have even increased.
The reality, though, is that a major reason for the district court vacancies is that senators -- namely Republican senators -- simply aren't making recommendations to the president in the first place. Per longstanding tradition, a senator kickstarts the process by passing along recommendations from their home states, and the president works with them to get at least some of those nominees confirmed. The White House may look at other nominees on its own, but typically won't move forward without input from the corresponding senators.
A Senate Democratic aide also points out that while Republicans may tout the speed with which certain nominees are being confirmed this year, the pace only quickened after the Senate worked through the backlog of nominees caused by GOP hold-ups over the past few years. In May 2012, for example, the Senate was still considering nominees from the prior year, the aide said. Similarly, in February 2013, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported out a slate of judicial nominees who had been returned to the White House last year because the Senate failed to act.
The report, which analyzed data on district court vacancies and judicial workloads since 1992, spotlights differences in the pattern of judicial vacancies under President Barack Obama and under other recent presidents. Typically, a district court sees a brief peak in vacancies after a presidential election, followed by a sharp decline in later years, the report states. But under Obama, those vacancies never returned to their previous level after a spike in 2009, and they have even increased.
The reality, though, is that a major reason for the district court vacancies is that senators -- namely Republican senators -- simply aren't making recommendations to the president in the first place. Per longstanding tradition, a senator kickstarts the process by passing along recommendations from their home states, and the president works with them to get at least some of those nominees confirmed. The White House may look at other nominees on its own, but typically won't move forward without input from the corresponding senators.
A Senate Democratic aide also points out that while Republicans may tout the speed with which certain nominees are being confirmed this year, the pace only quickened after the Senate worked through the backlog of nominees caused by GOP hold-ups over the past few years. In May 2012, for example, the Senate was still considering nominees from the prior year, the aide said. Similarly, in February 2013, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported out a slate of judicial nominees who had been returned to the White House last year because the Senate failed to act.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/02/obama-district-court-vacancies_n_3536341.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003
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