Leahey's Lesson, What's Good For Me, Ain't For Thee

From the Wall Street Journal...

Mr. Patrick Leahy, senior Senator from Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, while Mr. George Bush was president, stonewalled nearly every single one of Mr. Bush's judicial nominee's. Now, while he has a Democratic president, has chosen to break a legislative agreement on expanding the log-jammed Federal Court system. In the bill, the Federal Judgeship Act, first proposed in March 2008 was originally supposed to give both political parties a some voice in the make up the prosed expansion of the federal judiciary system. Thus the recent election results would decide which party's President then got to nominate the new judges. The agreement was to pass a bill and then have it become effective after the inauguration in 2009. It had wide spread bipartisan support.

Yet with a Democratic President now in the White House, Mr. Leahy wants to be sure Mr. Obama gets to do the picking—and not wait until the next election. His plan would create nine additional permanent appeals-court judgeships in five circuits, including two on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the Northeast and four on the overstretched Ninth in the West. It would also create three more temporary appeals court judgeships—seats that would last for 10 years through either 2019 or 2020. On the federal district courts, which are a step below the appellate bench, the Leahy bill would create another 38 permanent and 13 temporary judges.

Now, with a Democrat in the White House, Mr. Leahy has crafted legislation the circumvents the Federal Judgeship Act. Mr. Leahy's bill would allow the now sitting president to appoint the proposed judges, instead of the president elected after 2012 per the rule now.

More bi-partisanship shown by the Democrats. I expect that the "nuclear" option in the Senate will be used more and more often to circumvent any possible interference by minority parties. This is bad for the Republic, and will only engender a harsh response, once the present minority (if ever) gains a working majority. Unfortunately, I don't expect either party to react well to this attempt by the Democrats to pack the court system. FDR tried to do it in the 1930's. He failed. I hope the Mr. Obama fails this time as well.