Victory for Hunters and Fishermen, Dubya's Nominee Rejected for 9th Circuit

[JoseCuervo]

Looks like another of Dubya's attempts to politicize the Judicial branch has failed, and luckily for Hunters and Fishermen, Myers was rejected.

- Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a seventh Bush administration judicial nominee and got ready to possibly stop an eighth, reigniting a partisan battle certain to intensify as November elections near.


On a largely party-line vote of 53-44, Republicans fell seven shy of the needed 60 to end a procedural hurdle against President Bush's nomination of William Myers, whom Democrats oppose as a threat to the environment.

The president wants to put Myers, a Boise, Idaho, attorney who has worked as U.S. Interior Department solicitor general and as a beef- and mining-industry lobbyist, on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Bush accused Democrats in a statement of using unfair "obstructionist" tactics. "Bill Myers has the support of a bipartisan majority of senators and would be confirmed if given an up or down vote," he said.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, on late Tuesday scheduled a showdown vote on another stalled judicial nominee, Michigan judge Henry Saad.

Bush has nominated Saad to a seat on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. But Democrats believe they may be able to block him with another procedural hurdle.

During a spirited debate on Tuesday on Myers, Democrats and Republicans exchanged what have become dueling campaign refrains.

Republicans accused Democrats of obstructionism, and Democrats accused Bush of trying to line the federal courts with right-wing ideologues.

"The prejudices against Bill Myers reflect today's poisoned confirmation process," said Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican. "Nominees who somehow offend any well-funded liberal interest group are subject to distortions and baseless personal attacks."

But Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the committee's top Democrat, said: "William Myers epitomizes the anti-environmental tilt of so many Bush nominees. He should not be confirmed."

While Republicans hailed Myers as an able lawyer, Democrats denounced him as a tool of industry.

Myers became the first judicial nominee to be blocked since a temporary truce was reached in May between Senate Democrats and the White House.

Democrats permitted confirmation votes on 25 other nominees for lifetime appointments in an exchange for Bush's promise to stop circumventing the confirmation process by temporarily seating judges while the Senate is on recess.

That promise is good through the remainder of Bush's current term, which ends in January. Early this year, Bush made two temporary recess appointments of appeals court nominees who had been previously blocked by Senate Democrats.

Democrats said they have tried to cooperate on judicial nominees, noting they had helped Republicans confirm about 200 of Bush's judicial candidates.

There are now about two dozen judicial nominees pending, and it is uncertain how many the Senate will confirm before this Congress comes to an end in January.

With concerns that many will be left hanging, Republicans are considering making a big push for confirmation before Election Day, said Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican.

"You'll see a rather high-profile effort to try to get as many confirmed as possible," Cornyn said

Boise attorney William Myers lost a partisan fight on the Senate floor Tuesday.

In other words, checks and balances worked. A president's lifetime choice for federal court has to dispense nonpartisan justice. It's reasonable that the nominee should have bipartisan legislative backing before getting the job.

Now it's time for the Bush administration to move on — and find a consensus candidate for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, someone who can get confirmed and help handle cases for Idaho and the rest of the West.

Myers was controversial long before Tuesday, when 44 senators voted to block his nomination (Myers received 53 votes; he needed 60).

The trouble started with Myers' resume. Before he was named the Interior Department's top lawyer, Myers was a lobbyist and attorney for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association — underscoring the Bush administration's sometimes chummy relationship with natural resource industries.

Myers' public statements gave critics more ammunition. Environmentalists rightly wondered whether they'd get a fair shake from someone who once wrote that activists are "mountain biking to the courthouse as never before, bent on stopping human activity wherever it may promote health, safety and welfare."

To top it off, critics questioned Myers' qualifications, saying he lacked the litigation background and scholarly experience to serve on a federal appeals court.

Whether Myers has the skills for the job — or the even-handedness — was immaterial. This nomination never had a chance of getting 60 votes in an election year in a sharply divided Senate. April's 10-9 party-line Senate committee vote for the appointment foreshadowed Tuesday's result.

Politically, both parties got what they wanted. Republicans can accuse Democrats of obstructionism. Democrats can accuse the White House of promoting anti-environmental extremists.

Meanwhile, an overburdened court remains shy a judge.

When Idaho political leaders argue to get out of the 9th Circuit Court, their strongest argument has nothing to do with the court's flimsy Pledge of Allegiance ruling. The best argument focuses on the sheer enormity of a court that stretches from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific islands and serves about 55 million Americans. Critics say the court's 47 judges are stretched too far and burdened with too many cases; its rulings take too long and often lack the research needed to withstand Supreme Court scrutiny.

So why make the circuit court's job harder by blatantly politicizing a vacancy? That makes no sense.

President Bush could further politicize the process by naming Myers to the bench anyway. Bush used a "recess appointment" to add two judges, including controversial 5th Circuit Court nominee Charles W. Pickering Sr. A temporary recess appointment neither defuses the controversy nor satisfies the long-term needs for a full staff.

So here's a novel solution: Find a confirmable centrist. Maybe that's unlikely, in the runup to the presidential election.

Then again, the Senate has blocked only seven judicial nominees, including Myers, while saying yes to 198 others. The system is working elsewhere.

Both parties got their talking points out of the Myers episode. Now it's time to do right by Idahoans and other Westerners and find a winning candidate for this important job.