When Democrats controlled the U.S. Senate last year they killed many of President Bush's senior judgeship nominees on a party line vote in the Judiciary Committee, although had the names gotten out on the floor, most of the nominees would have passed.
Well, Democrats have lost their majority and now some of the people they wouldn't let out of committee in the last session are making it out this time. One such is Miguel Estrada, the first Hispanic ever to be nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.
Freshman U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., a member of the Judiciary Committee, thinks so highly of Estrada that he used his maiden Senate speech to endorse him: "a brilliant individual...an excellent lawyer and I think he's going to make an excellent judge."
His Republican colleagues agree, but not Democratic leaders. They're engaging in an unprecedented stall against an appellate court nominee, a move that requires 60 votes to bring Estrada's name to the floor for a vote.
The effort to stop this good man - a Washington lawyer who came from Honduras to the United States as a teenager and graduated from Harvard Law School - besmirches the confirmation process.
Estrada received the highest qualification possible from the American Bar Association which Republicans don't trust but which Democrats usually hold up as the Holy Grail when it comes to judicial nominations. So why are they opposed to Estrada?
Pure ideology. Estrada may be a conservative judge, but no one, not even conservatives, can say for sure because although he's a constitutional attorney, he does not have the kind of paper trail that portends how he might vote on the appeals court on such volatile issues as abortion, criminal rights and capital punishment.
So Democrats, under heavy pressure from far-left pressure groups, are trying to keep Estrada off the bench.
Democrats also claim that many prominent Hispanic groups oppose his nomination. Not mentioned is that they are groups like the Hispanic Caucus which have a far-left agenda. There are, in fact, many more Hispanic groups and organizations that support Estrada's nomination than oppose it.
If Democrats succeed in bringing Estrada down, it will be putting more importance on partisanship and obstructionism than on fairness to minorities or the efficient functioning of our perilously undermanned courts.
Temperament and experience should be the primary qualifications to consider in judgeship confirmations. Democrats need to realize that turnabout is fair play. Someday they might be in the position Republicans are today. Nobody wins if the confirmation process turns into ideological dogfights that cause paralysis in the judicial system.
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