OWNING THE MOST DANGEROUS BRANCH:

Mixed Results for Bush in Battles Over Judges: After more than three years of appointment battles, President Bush's ambitions for the courts are clear, but his record is mixed. (NEIL A. LEWIS, 10/22/04, NY Times)

Soon after President Bush took office, two events set in motion what has become an extraordinary battle between the White House and Senate Democrats over the appointment of federal judges.

First, the new president and his aides turned to the Federalist Society, a conservative lawyers' group, to help select candidates. Of Mr. Bush's first batch of nominees, 8 of 11 were proposed by the society. There could have been no clearer signal that Mr. Bush intended to follow the pattern set by his father and President Ronald Reagan of shifting the courts rightward and reaping the political benefit of pleasing social conservatives.

Then, at a weekend retreat in April 2001, Democratic senators adopted an aggressive new strategy in dealing with judicial candidates. Under Mr. Bush's Republican predecessors, the Democrats believed they could block only candidates with egregious faults. But that weekend, two prominent law professors and a women's rights lobbyist urged the senators to oppose even nominees with strong credentials and no embarrassing flaws, simply because the White House was trying to push the courts in a conservative direction.

Now, after more than three years of battles over judicial appointments, Mr. Bush's ambitions for the courts are clear, but his record is mixed. He has succeeded in placing staunch conservatives on the bench in many cases but has been foiled in others by Senate Democrats like Charles E. Schumer of New York who charge him with trying to "create the most ideological bench in history."

It would be best to get to 60 votes, but the GOP should also rewrite the Senate rules in the next Congress to at least do away with the filibuster on presidential appointments and guarantee an up or down vote.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 22, 2004 8:57 AM