The Daily Background

Tagged under Supreme Court, even though it’s not techincally SCOTUS related

After the Senate Judiciary Committee met today to discuss him, on Wednesday, the so-called Gang of 14 Senators will meet again (much to the annoyance of conservatives) to discuss supporting or not supporting Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for the D.C. Court of Appeals. I expect them to support him, but have a tougher time on Terrance Boyle, the other high profile judicial nomination that the President has made, which will likely come to the floor soon as well.

Democrats say Kavanaugh (who is a staff secretary in the White House) doesn’t have anywhere near the experience or qualifications to be a judge on the DC CoA. CNN reports that the American Bar Association of lawyers has “recently downgraded its rating of Kavanaugh from “well-qualified” to “qualified” after a new round of interviews with colleagues raised concerns over “the breadth of his professional experience.”"

Frist is expected to bring Kavanaugh to a vote on the Senate floor on Thursday. I don’t think that a Senate vote or hearings for the more controversial Boyle has been scheduled yet.

On Monday I explained how judicial nominee fights are a component of the Republican party strategy for the 2006 midterm elections this November. The Hill is reporting that Karl Rove is preparing to nominate (well technically the President will be “the decider“… ‘the nominator‘) no less than twenty (more, actually) people to federal court positions.

The Senate has been rather slow thus far about judicial confirmations however (Kavanaugh was nominated in 2003 and is only now having hearings)– a source of anger for many conservatives, so it is unclear how many of these twenty nominees will actually get hearings this year however.

Filed under: Supreme Court, Z-TDB Blog