Chief Justice Roberts Urges President Obama and Senate to Fill Judicial Posts

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/01/us/politics/01scotus.html?hp

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. called on President Obama and the Senate on Friday to solve what he called “the persistent problem of judicial vacancies.”

The plea, in the chief justice’s annual year-end report on the federal judiciary, was an echo of one from his predecessor, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who made front-page news on New Year’s Day in 1998 by criticizing the Senate for failing to move more quickly on President Bill Clinton’s judicial nominees.

Both chief justices were appointed by Republican presidents, and both said that their interest was not in particular appointees but in a judiciary functioning at something like full strength.

“We do not comment on the merits of individual nominees,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote on Friday. “That is as it should be. The judiciary must respect the constitutional prerogatives of the president and Congress in the same way that the judiciary expects respect for its constitutional role.”

[WCGreen]

1. Tell the GOP senators to stop being such Obstructionists.

[tammywammy]

2. I agree with him

"But he identified what he called a systemic problem.

“Each political party has found it easy to turn on a dime from decrying to defending the blocking of judicial nominations, depending on their changing political fortunes,” he said."

[bluestate10]

3. Maybe there is hope for Roberts afterall.

His last statement seems to hold republicans at fault as much as democrats. Now, if he would just put that sentiment into action during some of his rulings on the bench.

[Mz Pip]

4. It's true

Though I do think the GOP is the far worse culprit in the holding up of judicial nominees. There have been a few but I don't think it's been anywhere near the extent to which the Republicans do it.

The Democrats may have given Roberts and Alito a bit of a dusting up but they still ended up on the bench. And if I remember correctly Scalia pretty much sailed right through.

[gratuitous]

5. Hey Johnny boy

Talk to your pals in the Senate Republican caucus, notably the dimwits like Inhofe and Brownback who never met an anonymous hold they didn't like, the shifty little cowards.

[bleever]

6. Heck, they're your insurance against the perjury you committed, so

why not lean on them a little more?

Or is this one of those false equivalency cons, where you convince somebody it's a simple matter of calling balls and strikes in a game of baseball, when in fact you know that the strike zone is seen from where you choose to stand?

Which is my long version of saying: +1.

[DaveinJapan]

7. Roberts again proves his unabashed right wing views here by

calling on "President Obama and the Senate". That's a gigantic pile of bullshit, and if he had any integrity he'd have called on the Senate, ALONE. Has President Obama failed to nominate candidates? If a candidate is rejected (has that even occurred in this administration?), has he failed to nominate another one?

No, it has NOTHING to do with the President, except in that the Chief Justice is implying that the President is not nominating "acceptable" candidates, in other words, too many liberals. Of course, he didn't spell it out, but his implication is obvious. And wrong. And unconstitutional, too, since he's attempting to influence the nomination process by calling out the President unfairly.

It's the SENATE, alone, and in particular Senate Republicans, who are screwing up the system with their bullshit tactics. If they don't like a nominee, they should put it to a vote. Anything else is bullshit partisan obstructionism.

Good to know though that Bush's Chief Justice is as partisan and in the tank for the Repubs as ever though...I hope he can't sleep at night but somehow I doubt it.