Free Republic

It’s hard to keep up with everything going on in Washington, but if there’s one thing constantly humming along in the background, it’s the Republican effort to push through President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to send 44 of Trump’s court picks to the Senate floor for a confirmation vote. That’s a huge number at once; progressive judicial advocacy groups dubbed the committee’s hearing a “monster markup.” Most of these nominees were introduced in the last Congress but didn’t get confirmed in time, so Republicans are expediting them in one big batch. Thursday’s action comes...

On Tuesday, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), a 2020 candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, asked Trump judicial nominee Neomi Rao if she considered homosexual relationships to be sinful. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) immediately called Booker out on this line of questioning. Booker seized on Rao's 2008 article opposing the Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas, which decriminalized homosexual activity. He then directly asked her, "Are gay relationships in your opinion immoral?" "I am not sure the relevance of that," Rao responded. "Do you think gay relationships are immoral?" he continued. "I do not," Rao said. "Do you believe they are...

Conservatives warned the White House on Wednesday against striking a deal with California’s two Democratic senators to water down President Trump’s judicial picks for the West Coast’s federal appeals court. Sen. David Perdue, a Georgia Republican close to Mr. Trump, said he will call and try to scuttle the negotiations, reported by The Wall Street Journal, that would have the White House pick one conservative, one consensus nominee and one liberal nominee for three openings on the already liberal U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. “Why do we need to do a deal? This is totally within our purview. We...

Last week the White House announced the re-nomination of 51 judicial nominees, including a dozen circuit court nominees. Conspicuously absent from this list were the three judges that President Trump had nominated to the Ninth Circuit from California in October: Patrick Bumatay, Daniel Collins, and Ken Lee. All three are outstanding, experienced, and have demonstrated a commitment to the rule of law. Bumatay and Lee have longstanding ties to the Federalist Society. Collins is a former law clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia.During the first two years of his administration, President Trump gradually filled nearly all of the circuit...

President Trump announced Tuesday his intent to renominate 51 of his judicial nominees, who didn’t see confirmation votes during the last Congress and whose nominations had expired at the end of last year. Out of the 51 picks for the federal bench, nine were for federal circuit court vacancies including Neomi J. Rao, who was tapped to fill Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s old seat on the D.C. Circuit. Liberal groups have already vowed to oppose her nomination. Ms. Rao, who works in the White House budget office, came under scrutiny after several news outlets reported earlier this month about college...

This will continue to be a weekly post in the next Congress. The current Congress confirmed 85 judges: 53 District Court judges 30 Circuit Court judges 2 Supreme Court justices All existing nominations will expire on January 3rd and will have to be renominated by the President. The newly constituted Senate Judiciary Committee, with Lindsey Graham as chairman, an extra republican seat, and Jeff Flake gone, should be able to run through those nominations fairly quickly, especially the ones who had already made it to the floor. Orrin Hatch will also be gone from the committee, so three new senators...

Vice President Mike Pence had to break a tie in the Senate on Tuesday to confirm Jonathan Kobes as a judge on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 50-50 tie came thanks to Sen. Jeff Flake, who joined every Democrat in voting against the nomination. The retiring Arizona senator has vowed to block all judicial picks until the Senate votes on legislation that would protect special counsel Robert Mueller from being fired.Kobes is the first judge in U.S. history to be confirmed by the Senate with a tie-breaking vote from the vice president, according to CBS News.  With @VP breaking...

Says David Rutz, “I continue to not understand Flake’s closing argument in elected office of ‘I would normally be a spineless opportunist but now I’m not.'” It is strange. Flake made the same point during the Kavanaugh wars, when he was asked whether he would have paused the confirmation process for an FBI investigation if he had to face voters at the polls in November. “Not a chance,” said Flake. What he meant by that, I take it, is “There’s not a chance I could have done it and gotten reelected.” It’s a criticism of the ferocious partisanship that dominates...

This will be a weekly post. Count remains at 84 judges confirmed. 53 District Court judges 29 Circuit Court judges 2 Supreme Court justices The Farr nomination (district seat in NC) was killed because he (OMG!) helped Jesse Helms get reelected. Trump can renominate but will likely pick somebody else. In 34 days, Jeff Flake's senatorship ends!

South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott announced Thursday he will oppose embattled judicial nominee Thomas Farr, in a reversal of his position a day earlier that seemingly ends the nominee's chances for now amid fierce criticism by civil rights groups. Democratic lawmakers and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) have long cited Farr's work on the campaigns of North Carolina Republican Sen. Jesse Helms in 1984 and 1990. Farr was first nominated to the federal court in the Eastern District of North Carolina by former President George W. Bush in 2006, but never received a confirmation...

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) announced Wednesday that he is canceling votes on nearly two dozen of President Trump’s judicial nominees that were expected to come up in the Judiciary Committee this week. The cancellation of the committee’s Thursday business meeting comes as Senate Republicans are in a standoff with outgoing Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who has vowed to oppose all court picks until he gets a vote on legislation protecting special counsel Robert Mueller. The notification from the Judiciary Committee didn’t specify when, or if, the committee votes on the nominations would be rescheduled. Six circuit court nominees had been...

She’s not a senator, but Cynthia Nance plays an enormous role in shaping the debate over some of President Trump’s judicial picks. Ms. Nance, former dean of the University of Arkansas School of Law, handles the American Bar Association’s judicial ratings for nominees to federal courts in North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas, which make up the federal 8th Circuit. The ABA’s role is one the more opaque parts of the process, but Republicans are pushing it into the light, accusing her of allowing personal bias, particularly a fealty to abortion rights, to color her ratings....

This will be a weekly post. Count remains at 84 judges confirmed. 53 District Court judges 29 Circuit Court judges 2 Supreme Court justices

After yet another liberal California judge earlier this week blocked one of President Trump’s policies - this time a new asylum rule that would have required applicants to arrive at a designated port of entry (a lot to ask, I know) - the understandably frustrated president lashed out at liberal courts in general.“I think it’s a disgrace when every case gets filed in the 9th Circuit,” said Trump. “That’s not law, that’s not what this country stands for. Every case that gets filed in the 9th Circuit, we get beaten and then we end up having to go to the Supreme Court,...

Chief Justice John Roberts rebutted President Donald Trump's recent criticism that the recent ruling against the administration's asylum policy on migrants was issued by an "Obama judge". “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges," Roberts, who originally responded to the Associated Press, said via a statement issued from the Supreme Court's press office. "What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.” The president responded directly to the...

President Trump on Thursday continued to respond to a rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts, saying the Supreme Court justice "can say what he wants" while defending his criticism of the federal judiciary following a ruling against his administration this week. "Justice Roberts can say what he wants, but the 9th Circuit is a complete & total disaster. It is out of control, has a horrible reputation, is overturned more than any Circuit in the Country, 79%, & is used to get an almost guaranteed result. Judges must not Legislate Security and Safety at the Border, or anywhere else. They...

One easily can read between the lines of a frustrated and perplexed Chief Justice John Roberts when he now desperately claims, with patent nonsense and perhaps even a dry sense of humor, that “we do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.” Of course we do! The ACLU knows that we do. Roberts knows that we do. Everyone knows that. The radical “Progressive” cabal of Democrats and their Left Media stooges know it. Heck, the Obama and Clinton judges know it. Why did The Resistance go to war trying to destroy Clarence Thomas and Brett...

President Trump took time off from his long holiday weekend on Wednesday to slam Chief Justice John Roberts, who earlier in the day had rebuked the president for his attacks on the federal judiciary. “Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’ and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country. It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an ‘independent judiciary,” the commander-in-chief tweeted from Mar-a-Lago after a round of golf with the legendary Jack Nicklaus. “[B]ut if it is why...

Fox News host Mark Levin defended President Trump on Wednesday after Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked the president's criticism of a federal judge. The conservative host argued in a Facebook post defending Trump that "there are ... too many progressive judges and justices who legislate from the bench." "Indeed, when it came to Obamacare, Roberts himself led the court’s leftists in rewriting the Constitution and imposing that damnable law on all of us," he wrote. "It appears John Roberts doesn’t live in the real world." Levin weighed in after Roberts offered a rare statement rebuking Trump's criticism of a federal...

This will be a weekly post. Count remains at 84 judges confirmed. 53 District Court judges 29 Circuit Court judges 2 Supreme Court justices This week Senator Jeff Flake said he will not vote to confirm (either in Judiciary or on the floor) any further judges until a bill to protect Robert Mueller is voted on. McConnell killed such a bill and Senator John Barasso of Wyoming said that the Senate will confirm judges with or without Jeff Flake. On January 3rd, this obstacle to conservatism will be off the Judiciary Committee and out of the Senate and confirmations will...