Which “appellate court” is Estrada a nominee for? If by “appellate court” tey mean one of the Federal Circuit courts – the second-highest-ranking tier of courts in the land, second only to the U.S. Supreme Court – then to me it’s kinda scary that the person being nominated has had no previous experience being a judge at any level.
werd!
Half the judges on the appellate court Estrada is nominated to had no judicial experience. It’s very common. Earl Warren had no judicial experience and he was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
I know this is futile, but can you find a cite (and I’m not going to look since, as you brought up both the “not one” and the “hardly any,” the burden of proof is on you) for anything? Not an IIRC, not an editorial, but an actual reportorial article from a recognized source?
Two words establish the falsity of this claim: Ted Olson.
I’m probably displaying my ignorance here, but didn’t Estrada have the opportunity to answer the Democrats’ questions in the hearing?
If that was the case (and I’m not sure it is)…
…why exactly should the Democrats have to go question him again, after he’s had time to rethink what the politically correct response would be, and/or be coached?
He should have responded when he had the questions the first time.
Not really. Olsen is in an executive branch position. It would be very odd to deny an administration its choice to be its own top appellate lawyer.
You must be terrified on a daily basis. I don’t have the numbers at my fingertips, but many Supreme Court Justices were named directly to the Court from private practice (Rehnquist and Powell are the two coming to mind). Almost all of the others were appointed directly to Courts of Appeals from private practice. In fact, I think O’Connor is the only current Justice who has any judicial experience below the federal court of appeals level.
Unless you know Estrada personally, you must have a keener mind than most. Estrada worked for four different Solicitors General appointed by Bill Clinton. Every one of the four not only gives him the highest marks, but also has agreed to meet with individual Senators who have questions about Estrada’s nomination. By the way, the four former SGs also would have seen the memos Schumer keeps talking about.
For those who care, here are Estrada’s answers in toto:
december, are you truly interested in seeing Estrada on the bench? Or is this just about hurting the Dems politically?
I have a feeling (from your many posts on the subject) it’s the latter. Which is a shame. It would be nice to think that this were solely about promoting qualified minorities to higher positions in our government. Instead, it appears that you (and the Republican party) have jumped on the issue as a matter of race, and are trying to use it to damage the Democratic party and ‘lure’ Hispanics to your side.
Fortunately, I don’t think it will work. People don’t like being used as political pawns. Eventually, I believe Hispanics will see that this is less about caring for their people, and more about political maneuverings.
:rolleyes: The bald-faced hypocrisy.
Wow! What stunning debating skills you have there.
Are you suggesting that Democrats do not care about minorities? Or do you think Dems are playing the race card?
I have a feeling that this was a silly drive-by, so I doubt that I will receive a thoughtful reply. Still…
I’m glad that the Democrats have the balls to stand up to the Republican majority. Filibuster away!
And it would be even more odd to deny an administration its nominee for anything because of his firm’s role in Bush v. Gore. If there was even a shred of payback for that, you’d figure the guy who argued the bloody case would pay the price, but apparently not. Estrada was not even listed on the briefs.
Hence, the claim of payback is nonsense.
Well … I do remember that there was some concern in the early phase of the Clarence Thomas nomination hearings that George Bush Sr. chose Thomas because Thomas was black and therefore Bush’s rivals would be less likely to vote against Thomas’s nomination for fear of being labelled a racist. (Of course, the whole point became moot when Anita Hill hit the fan.)
Perhaps there’s a little bit of that in Estrada’s nomination too, I don’t know.
bbonden:
While I support your general proposition that prior judicial experience shouldn’t be (and historically hasn’t been) a prerequisite for appointment to Courts of Appeals or the Supreme Court, you’re in danger of playing fast and loose with the facts. Let me introduce the numbers to your fingertips:
First, it’s incorrect that only O’Connor of the current Justices has served judicially below the level of federal appellate courts; David Souter spent twelve years serving on the New Hampshire state bench, five years on the Superior Court and seven on the state Supreme Court. What you may have meant was that O’Connor is the only member of the current Court to have been elevated to the Supreme Court with only state-level judicial experience, a claim which, while true, isn’t particularly interesting–William Rehnquist had no judicial experience at all before joining the Court as an associate justice, and Souter only served for three months on the First Circuit Court of Appeals (neither writing nor being assigned any opinions) before being elevated to the Supreme Court. Also, Clarence Thomas spent only seventeen months in the D.C. Circuit before his nomination.
Second, your assertion about most of the Justices being appointed to Courts of Appeals from private practice is both incorrect and misleading: Aside from Justices O’Connor & Souter (coming from state courts) and Justice Rehnquist (who, though in private practice for several years beforehand, was actually assistant attorney general upon his nomination to the Supreme Court), Justices Stevens and Kennedy came to their appellate court from private practice, but Justice Scalia was a law professor upon his appointment (and had not been in private practice for over a decade before that), Justice Thomas was chairman of the EEOC, Justice Ginsburg was general counsel for the ACLU upon appointment to the D.C. Court of Appeals (does that count as private practice?), and Justice Breyer never practiced privately, working in the government and academic sectors before being appointed to the First Circuit bench.
So of the eight current Justices who served on appellate benches, only two (three if you count Ginsburg) were “appointed directly to Courts of Appeals from private practice.” Is this “almost all,” as you contend? I’d be happy to do the research to discover whether past Justices were culled to appellate benches directly from private practice in much greater numbers, but only if you demonstrate to me why such a thing is likely to have changed so dramatically in recent years.
In any case, it’s meaningless in this current discussion: like Souter and Thomas before him, Miguel Estrada is widely acknowledged to be on the fast track to the Supreme Court; his potential D.C. Circuit appointment is intended to be a waystation. Therefore, he can’t be compared to people like Kennedy or Ginsburg, who served twelve and a half and thirteen years, respectively, on their appellate courts before being nominated for the Supreme Court. Even Stevens is inapposite; he spent five years on the federal bench before becoming a Supreme Court justice. You wanna lay odds on how long Estrada stays on the D.C. Circuit before he’s “seasoned” enough to move on up? It ain’t gonna be anywhere near five years, and if either O’Connor or Rehnquist step down at the end of this term, as is widely rumored, it’ll be a hell of a lot closer to five months.
Which points to my fundamental problem with Estrada’s experience: it’s not that he’s never been a judge, it’s that I’ve got no current basis to gauge what kind of a judge he’ll be. Even Scalia, who served only four years on the D.C. Circuit before his appointment, had authored numerous law review articles both before and during his tenure as a judge; consequently, anyone with half a sense of the law could read those articles and know Scalia’s brand of politically conservative textualism. (That’s why it didn’t matter so much when he refused to answer even the most basic of questions–on Marbury v. Madison, say(!)–during his confirmation hearings.)
But there’s no basis from which to understand Estrada’s political or jurisprudential philosophies, and to the degree those things are important considerations (as they certainly were to Bush and his staff in nominating Estrada in the first place), they should be cognizable. If they’re not cognizable, a senator should feel no compunction in rejecting the nomination. (I have doubts whether full and forthcoming testimony by itself is enough to render a nominee’s political and judicial philosophies cognizable, but it should help–which is why I’m disappointed that the Democrats aren’t giving Estrada an opportunity to either quell their concerns or attempt to stonewall serious inquiry.)
According to the Republicans, he did respond to appropriate questions the first time. According to the Democrats he didn’t. A set of written questions and written answers would settle the dispute, but the Democrats have chosen not to go that route.
Thanks to bbonden, we have the entire Estrada Senate testimony. It’s time to fight ignorance. Those who think Estrada didn’t answer the questions he should have are invited to find evidence in the cite.
leander, I am interested in both seeing Estrada on the bench and helping the Republicans politically. When Republicans opposed Ronnie White, they paid a political price. John Ashcroft lost his Senate race, which allowed Democrats to control the Senate. This time, the Democrats may pay a price.
Minty, does the Solicitor General require Senate confirmation? I don’t recall Olson’s hearings.
december, why are you not ready to state that this isn’t about Estrada’s forthcomingness or ethnicity, but that it’s simply the latest chapter in a conservative Republican court-packing effort and moderate/liberal Democratic resistance to same?
Yes.
This is likely a surprisingly accurate interpretation of events. The Republicans are packing the courts because of their good fortune to be in power during a time of many vacancies.
I expect the Republicans to nominate folks who are both qualified and sympathetic to Republican political issues. It would be pretty sill to expect them to nominate enemies for positions of power.
More important in this statement of yours is the suggestion that the Democratic opposition is being dishonest as to the motivations for their filibuster. If they oppose Estrada on ideological grounds why not simply do so on those grounds rather than manufacture a pretense?
For the same reason that Republicans like to pretend Estrada was nominated for his accomplishments as opposed to his politics.
Scylla, “a time of many vacancies” … “their good fortune to be in power”, huh?
That was precious. Thanks for the laugh.