A Progressive View of Judicial Nominations

As right wing groups line up to try to stack the courts with activist judges straight out of the 19^th century, progressives must use all legitimate means to protect the impartiality and fairness of our judicial system. President Bush's stated desire to have judges who "strictly interpret the constitution" means only one thing – judges who seek to shift the courts to the right by imposing narrow ideological limits on fundamental rights and the ability of Congress to advance the interests of the American people. How do we get to a more principled understanding of the nomination process? The Center for American Progress offers the following guidelines:

• Senators must explicitly consider the ideology of any judicial nominee.    Presidents have always taken ideology into account in making nomination to the federal courts, and Senate has always reserved the right to withhold its consent on the same grounds.  A judge's ideological views are a major factor in how they make decisions and senators should focus on a nominee's beliefs about the Constitution and the role of the courts in interpreting it to determine whether those views are within the constitutional mainstream.
  
  
• The president must make genuine efforts to consult with the bipartisan leadership of the Senate.  The president drives the nomination process and he is ultimately responsible for the how the process of judicial confirmations proceeds.  In order to ensure an efficient and deliberative process, the president should consult closely with the bipartisan leadership of the Senate on judicial nominations and work cooperatively with committee leaders to fill vacancies on the federal courts in a timely fashion.
  
  
• Senators must be prepared to use all the means available to them under Senate rules to fulfill their constitutional responsibility.    The constitution assigns "shared responsibility for judicial appointments to the president and the Senate." If the president submits nominees whose views are so extreme that senators conclude they should not be confirmed, "they are entitled to exercise the means afforded them under the rules of the Senate to ensure that their views are heard." Where necessary, that includes using a filibuster—"one of a number of time-honored devices by which the senate ensures respect for minority views."

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