Senate Confirms Circuit Judge, Obama’s Fourth
Fair Courts E-lert
Bibliographic Info:
Author: David Ingram
Source: Legal Times
Date: 1/20/2010
In a unanimous vote last week, the Senate confirmed Judge Beverly Martin to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit; her confirmation makes her “[Obama’s] fourth confirmed circuit judge,” according to David Ingram at Legal Times. One year into his first term, Obama has been slow to nominate federal judges, and the Senate, hobbled by partisan rancor, has been slower to confirm them. The plodding pace of filling federal judicial vacancies is a source of concern, according to law professor Carl Tobias, because the 101 vacancies on the federal bench “erode the delivery of justice.” “Obama’s hopes for post-partisanship failed when it came to the judiciary,” writes Jeffrey Toobin at The New Yorker. “What’s perplexing is that Obama himself has not filled the pipeline with nominations; if he did, Republicans might feel some pressure to move the process along.”
See also Carl Tobias, Obama, Senate Must Move Quickly to Fill Judicial Vacancies, Des Moines Register, January 20, 2010; Jeffrey Toobin, One Year: Where are the Judges?, The New Yorker, January 20, 2010.