I have been wondering this for some time now. And I know there is alot of anecdotal evidence surrounding this question. But are any of George W. Bush’s judicial nominees moderate? I know Democrats block most?/all? of his nominees for being to extremist. But surely some of his nominees must be moderate. And if so, I would appreciate it if someone could provide a percentage 
.
P.S. BTW, by moderate I mean that they might support Roe v. Wade (like Assoc. Jus. Sandra Day O’Connor).
There is no objective definition of “moderate.” This thread really belongs in GD.
Jim B. wrote," I know Democrats block most?/all? of his nominees for being to extremist."
Actually, most of Mr. Bush’s nominees have gone right through. When compared with the percentage of blocked nominees during the Clinton years, the Democrats have been generous to Bush. The Republicans make a fuss when it does happen, and that’s enough to make some folks think that no nominees are getting in.
He gave a definition of “moderate”. For the purposes of the question,
It would seem to me that one could come up with a fairly decent definition of “moderate” by cobbling together a few criteria. Off the top of my head:
A rating of “qualified” or higher, preferably “highly qualified,” from the ABA
A higher-than-10% score from both a liberal advocacy group and a conservative advocacy group that use the 0-to-100 scale for grading candidates. (10% is arbitrary – you may want to make it 20% or 25% minimum.)
An endorsement by a good moderate organization that is not polemic – if you can find one that qualifies and that ranks candidates for judgeships.
This one is gonna wind up a debate, no matter how well it started.
Moved from GQ to GD.
samclem GQ moderator
In an attempt to mend fences with Senate Democrats, Bush renominated two Clinton appointments whose confirmations couldn’t be heard before the Presidential election. These two, Judges Roger Gregory and Barrington Parker, can be considered moderate to liberal.
This goodwill gesture got Bush nowhere, so don’t look for him to do something stupid like this again.
The Democrats, hopefully, have learned a similar lesson from letting 98% of Bush’s extremist nominees get confirmed without a fuss. Give George an inch and he’ll screw you for a mile.
Actually a lot of Bush’s appointments weren’t extremists by any degree.
You have to remember no one, and I mean almost no one, referred to Bush or Gore as anything other than “boring moderates” prior to 9/11 or so.
Does Bush predominantly appoint people that lean Republican? Yes. That is the political spoils system, and love it or hate it, it’s been the norm for 150+ years.
The argument can be made “shouldn’t we worry about qualified candidates over political spoils” and yes, you should be. But there are a shitload of legal professionals that are all more than qualified enough to be appointed to say Federal Judgeships, so it’s not like Bush is really taking vastly underqualified people and appointing them.
Furthermore, despite the political aspects of a judge’s life you would be surprised just how many judges truly are arbitrary in the courtroom. You’d be surprised to find how seriously many of them take their jobs.
I would actually say that paradoxically the USSC Judges are the least arbitrary of all the judges in the Federal judiciary.
Even still, look to Warren Burger.
Highly touted Conservative, did a lot of things that had Nixon fuming nonetheless. When you’re appointed for life you pretty much get to do what you feel is right and to hell with everyone else.
I’d like to see some cites to back that up. I was talking to someone a few weeks ago who said just the opposite (Dems hold up all of Bush’s nominees, Repubs let most of Clinton’s through), and I did a quick search, finding nothing to contradict him… (I’m not calling you on this, I really would like to see those cites, cause this is the only point in our argument he nailed me on…)
I find it to be a sorry state of affairs (not necessarily blaming you) that people believe such lies. For heaven’s sake, the numbers have even appeared on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal (care of the one token moderate to liberal columnist who appears there every week…I forget his name). Since I can’t find that cite online, I’ll have to give you the one I can find which is to U.S. Senate’s Democratic Policy Committee:
Note that the Republicans have made a big deal about the Democrats using the filibuster. However, this is the only method available to them when they are not in control of the Senate as the Republicans were for much of Clinton’s time in office. And, in fact, the filibuster is a much fairer way to block nominees in the sense that 40 Senators have to go on record as being opposed to the nomination. During Clinton’s time, most of the blocked nominees never even got a vote. In fact, in many cases you had just one or a few extremist senators like Jesse Helms blocking them. So, while in that case a few extremist Senators could hold up one moderate nominee, in the case of Bush’s appointments you only get a nominee blocked if he is so extremist that at least 40 Senators think so and are willing to go on record in opposition.
Off the top of my head, I can think of one: former Congressman Bill Martini of New Jersey.
The official numbers:
So percentage-wise, Clinton had about six times as many nominees blocked as Bush.
Hey, I didn’t believe it, just couldn’t contradict him with facts this time (he’s always spouting out right wing shit and I have to pull down a few websites to shut him up). So I’m not gullible, just google impaired :D. Maybe I’ll just tell him to provide a cite or shut up in the future…
Thanks for the link.
No, problem. Glad to help out.