After decades of Republican appointments of conservative federal judges (at the time of your election more than 60 percent of all federal judges and seven of the nine justices of the Supreme Court had been appointed by Republican presidents), you now have an historic opportunity to reestablish our nation’s commitment to the core values of our Constitution by nominating judges who will uphold the fundamental principles of individual dignity, equality, due process, personal liberty, privacy, and separation of powers. We urge you to seize this opportunity.
We write out of a growing concern that your Administration must act with far more energy and dispatch in the vitally important task of nominating and confirming federal judges. We recognize that partisan obstructionism in the Senate has made this task increasingly difficult, but the successful management of the confirmation process is critical to the nation and, ultimately, is the White House’s responsibility.
Since taking office, you have nominated only 43 federal judges — despite the fact that there are currently more than 100 judicial vacancies and 31 judicial “emergencies” due to unfilled positions. By contrast, at this point in his presidency, President George W. Bush had nominated 89 judges to the federal bench, and by the time he left office he had appointed fully 40 percent of all federal judges. In so doing, he transformed the federal judiciary in a sharply conservative direction. This transformation was a central priority of his domestic agenda.
We urge you to make the federal judiciary just as central a priority of your Administration. This is important not only for the Supreme Court, but also for the lower federal courts, which make thousands of decisions each year on issues as wide-ranging as freedom from discrimination, due process, religious and expressive liberty, crime and punishment, the environment, immigration, workplace safety, privacy, and access to the political process.
Wednesday 3 March 2010
Obama's Judges ☀
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