Confirmation logjam

[Jack Balkin]

Why only judicial appointments, rather than everything else the Senate can
hold up in committee?  Why not treaties, for example, or appointments to
federal agencies or cabinet positions?  After all, the President would like
to have things done his way, and a Senate controlled by the opposite party
would only counteract ambition with ambition, and *that* would be
completely inconsistent with the basic scheme of our Constitution. ;-)  Any
devotee of original intention should rush to eliminate such checks and
balances, for everyone knows that our Constitution was designed to allow
powerful and ambitious men to ramrod things through and place the most
ideologically pure people in positions of power, so that they could allow
factions to dominate the political process, deprive people of their basic
liberties, and take the people to war against their will.

Oh, wait ..... wrong Constitution.  Sorry.

Jack Balkin


At 12:01 AM 10/19/02 -0700, Automatic digest processor wrote:
>Date:     Sat, 19 Oct 2002 00:01:22 -0700
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>There are 3 messages totalling 671 lines in this issue.
>
>Topics of the day:
>
>   1. Confirmation logjam (3)
>Date:    Fri, 18 Oct 2002 14:55:56 -0700
>From:    "Eastman, John" <jeastman at CHAPMAN.EDU>
>Subject: Confirmation logjam
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
>boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C276F1.22F01D12"
>
>Yesterday s Wall Street Journal carried an op-ed in which I propose
>legislation that would vest the appointment of lower court judges in the
>President alone whenever the Senate has failed to act within six months on
>a judicial nomination.  I initially made the proposal in a hearing before
>the House Judiciary Committee subcommittee on the Constitution last
>week.  I d be curious to hear what folks on this list think about the proposal.
>
>
>
>John Eastman
>
>Chapman University School of Law
>
>
>
>P.S.  The op-ed is available at
><http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1034814802784273388-search,00.html?coll
>ection=wsjie/30day&vql-string=%28%28Eastman%29%3Cin%3E%28article%2Dbody%29%
>3Cor%3E%28article%2Ddoc%2Dtype%3CCONTAINS%3EEastman%29%29>http://online.wsj
>.com/article/0,,SB1034814802784273388-search,00.html?collection=wsjie/30day
>&vql-string=%28%28Eastman%29%3Cin%3E%28article%2Dbody%29%3Cor%3E%28article%
>2Ddoc%2Dtype%3CCONTAINS%3EEastman%29%29 for Wall Street Journal subscribers.
>
>
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