At the Supreme Court level, with the attendant publicity, the only judicial candidates that would cause a successful filibuster would be an extreme ideological liberal, essentially the anti-Bork, or someone notably underqualified like Harriet Meyers. Given the type of appointments he has already made, and his apparently cool, cautious nature, I think that the chance of Obama making such a pick for a Supreme Court Justice is negligible at best. He’s going to be personally selecting any Supreme Court nominee, and he’s not stupid enough to pick someone that will draw that kind of fire. Given any sort of reasonable candidate, Republican Senators, particularly those from swing states, are not going to want to have this the point on which they make their stand.
For the lower courts, though, there will be a few that the right wing will target. Most likely, they’ll be candidates with something on the record that pings one of the wedge issues like gun control or abortion. What will probably happen is those candidates will get hung up in committee until one side or the other decides it is the politically right time for the big, noisy fight, at which time most of them will get through but just a few will be picked off, leaving each side a partial victory to bring home.
Nah, Obama’s not going to appoint Ayers to anything. Blagovitch is, to fill Obama’s Senate seat. Then Ayers is going to get named President Pro Tem of the Senate, and Obama’s going to assassinate Biden and Pelosi and retire, making the evil liberal terrorist the President of the United States.
Well Miers was a pretty crafty bait and switch. There is no way that they actually intended for her to get in. They just wanted to tire everyone out with a media circus and then slip in their real choice, Alito.
The ideological/partisan makeup of the federal bench apparently is a thornier problem now than it ever has been before, going by this article in today’s Washington Post.
That’s horrible reporting from the WaPo. Talking about “Democrats” gaining a majority on particular circuits? Federal Judges aren’t Democrat or Republican…
No they fucking aren’t, and all pretense to the contrary is well, just pretense. Take Scalia, for example. I oppose his judicial philosophy; I oppose his opinions most of the time. But he does many things that drive Republicans crazy. I’d take Conservative and Liberal as labels. But Democrat and Republican is just plain wrong.
Some Republicans are more liberal than others. Nevertheless, almost all judges have a partisan (as distinct from ideological) identification before they are nominated, and they do not drop it when they put on their robes.
Of course they have a personal, partisan affiliation.
But that isn’t the way it is being referred to here. The bottom line is that there simply isn’t a Democrat or Republican answer to cases much of the time. An implication that either party has a coherent judicial theory implies not only too great cohesiveness on the part of the parties, but also far to great a level of intelligence and understanding for the political system.
Eh?! Even with a Dem Senate, a Pub POTUS’ SCOTUS nominee generally had to be a positive Bork to get rejected.