A story in today’s New York Times is likely to raise eyebrows.
According to the paper,
The American Bar Association has secretly declared a significant number of President Obama’s potential judicial nominees “not qualified,” slowing White House efforts to fill vacant judgeships — and nearly all of the prospects given poor ratings were women or members of an ethnic minority group, according to interviews.
The rate, according to the story, is three times the previous two presidencies, which makes it seem as though we are looking at a run of unqualified judicial candidates being nominated.
A closer look, however, makes it clear that there is a lot more smoke than fire to this story:
the association’s judicial vetting committee has opposed 14 of the roughly 185 potential nominees the administration asked it to evaluate, according to a person familiar with the matter.
That’s 7.5 percent who were opposed by the ABA — or, to put it another way, 92.5 percent approved.
The administration points to a shift in philosophy — the push to appoint more judges with varied backgrounds, including those who have not worked as courtroom lawyers. This could be at odds with the ABA’s apparent preference for courtroom litigators and explain the higher number of rejections.
In any case, it seems like a non-issue, though I have a sneaky feeling that we’ll be hearing from conservatives on this one claiming that Obama is damaging the federal bench with unqualified judges. These, of course, will be the same conservatives who applauded when George W. Bush opted to stop sending nominees to the ABA for review because he felt the organization was ideologically biased.
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