When the 110th Congress convenes in January, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., will become chairman of the Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts and he's absolutely saying he plans to reject any of President Bush's judicial nominees who appear to be conservative.
"There will be no more right-wing judges, period," he told the New York Daily News. "(Bush) will have to negotiate with us, because we'll have the majority."
According to the New York Sun, Schumer said the single greatest failure of the Democrats was allowing Samuel Alito to join the Supreme Court.
“Judges are the most important,” he said. “One more justice would have made it a 5-4 conservative, hard-right majority for a long time. That won’t happen.”
With more than 50 federal judicial vacancies, Bush has many opportunities to place judges who see their job as interpreters of the Constitution rather than as makers of law. But every nominee must be approved by Schumer and his panel before further consideration. And Schumer will control the interview process.
The White House today submitted six nominations. Terrence Boyle of North Carolina and William James Haynes II of Virginia were nominated to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.; Michael Wallace of Mississippi was nominated to the 5th Circuit in New Orleans; Peter Keisler was nominated to the D.C. Circuit; and William Myers III and Norman Smith, both of Idaho, were nominated to the 9th Circuit in San Francisco.
Five of those nominees already have been through the ringer with Democrats. Last August, liberals in the Senate charged that the nominees were an attempt by the president to appeal to his conservative base. Schumer is using that same argument in his threats to obstruct.
'Democrats have asked the president to be bipartisan, but this is a clear slap in the face at our request,' Schumer told The Associated Press in response to the news of the nominations. 'For the sake of the country, we hope that this is an aberration, because the president feels he must placate his hard-right base, rather than an indication of things to come.'
Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said Schumer is making a huge political mistake by "crying wolf" about "right-wing" judges.
"That's what he called Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito," he said. "That was before the American public had the opportunity to watch them during their confirmation hearings and observe otherwise."
Those hearings, Hausknecht said, highlighted the truth that a "right-wing" judge is simply someone who believes the Constitution should be interpreted according to its original meaning, and that judges should use restraint, rather than legislate social policy from the bench.
Schumer, a graduate of Harvard Law, should know the role of judges, he said, but seems to have forgotten his law-school training and is trying to appease Democrats.
Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said conservative candidates should have placed the issue at the forefront prior to November's election.
"When I was out traveling, that was the primary thing I talked about — and it registered with people," he said. "But I don't think we pushed it hard enough. We clearly should have, particularly in the Senate races."
November's election is over, Hausknecht said, and with a presidential election just two years away, Americans need to keep an eye on the judicial-nomination process.
"Schumer's rhetoric and planned obstruction of judicial nominees was sadly predictable," he said. "If his actions follow his rhetoric, which is absolutely contrary to the will of the voters, it will be a short two-year stint for the Democrats in control of the Senate."
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(Paid for by Focus on the Family Action)
