Last week, the Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) joined a coalition of 60 organizations — led by our friends at the Committee for Justice — in urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to act on President Bush's judicial nominees.
In a letter delivered to each of the 19 members of the Committee, the organizations expressed "deep concern about the lack of progress in 2007 in reporting judicial nominees." Specifically, the letter points out that "[a] year into the 110th Congress, the Judiciary Committee has held hearings for only four appeals court nominees and has voted on only six. As a result, the full Senate has fallen far short of the confirmation pace necessary to meet the historical average of 17 circuit court confirmations during a president's final two years in office — an average maintained during the Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton presidencies despite opposition control of the Senate."
"Instead of seeing progress," the letter reads, "the American people are watching judicial nominees stack up in the Judiciary Committee. Ten appeals court nominees — seven of them waiting to fill vacancies declared 'judicial emergencies' — and nearly twenty district court nominees languish in committee. Several nominees have been waiting more than a year and a half."
Citing Congress' "remarkably low approval ratings," the letter urges the Committee to put politics aside and move those judicial nominees out of Committee so the full Senate can fulfill its Constitutional duty by holding fair up-or-down votes on their confirmations.