Senate Holding Hostage The Judiciary

Half of all Americans—over 160 million of us—live in judicial districts or circuits that have a vacancy that would be filled today if the Republican obstruction of judicial nominations would end. Over the past few months, even consensus nominees who were supported unanimously by the bipartisan Senate Judiciary Committee have been subject to unprecedented delays and, as was the case of Judge Adalberto Jordán and Jesse Furman, filibusters.

When the Senate returns from recess on Monday, February 27, its primary job is to vote on the President’s nominees. With almost 10 percent of the federal judiciary vacant and over 30 judicial emergency seats desperate for a judge, senators are causing harm to our justice system by holding the third branch of our government hostage, according to Common Purpose Project.

The following is a list of the five judgeships that have been vacant for longer than all others.

Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit - vacant since 12/31/04 - no nominee.

Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit - vacant since 9/29/05 - no nominee.

Eastern District of North Carolina - vacant since 12/31/05 - no nominee.

Northern District of West Virginia - vacant since 12/18/2006 -Gina Marie Groh, nominated on 5/19/11.

District of Maryland - vacant since 9/1/2008 - George Levi Russell, III, nominated on 11/10/11.

The following is a list of the five judicial nominees who have been waiting the longest for confirmation.

Mary Geiger Lewis, Nominated to the District of South Carolina on March 16, 2011.

Jeffrey J. Helmick, Nominated to the Northern District of Ohio on May 11, 2011.

Cathy Ann Bencivengo, Nominated to the Southern District of California on May 11, 2011.

Gina Marie Groh, Nominated to the Northern District of West Virginia on May 19, 2011.

Jesse M. Furman, Nominated to the Southern District of New York on June 7, 2011

“The Checks And Balances In Our Constitution Are Being Eroded”

2/2/12 - U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said that 47 Republican senators would insist on a full debate and would file amicus briefs challenging President Obama’s appointments in January, saying, “If the President’s actions were to stand as a precedent, the Senate may very well find that, when it takes a break for lunch and comes back, the country has a new Supreme Court Justice.”

“The President has shown disregard for possibly the best-known and most important role of the Senate – its power of advice and consent of executive and judicial nominations as outlined in Article 2, Section 2, of the Constitution. These actions—four appointments during a period of time the Senate was in session—fly in the face of the principle of separation of powers, the concepts of checks and balances against an imperial president.”

Alexander contrasted the actions of President Obama’s administration with those of President George Washington, saying: “Our revolution was a revolution against a king. George Washington as commander of chief of the Continental Army led a fight for independence from a king whom the signers of the Declaration of Independence stated had a ‘history of repeated injuries and usurpations all having direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over the states.’

Those were our revolutionary Founders talking. As president of the Philadelphia Convention, George Washington presided over the writing of the United States Constitution, which emphasizes, if it emphasizes any one word, the idea of ‘liberty’ in creating the system of government that we enjoy today. Then there was another aspect to George Washington, of which we were reminded, which would be good for us to think about today – and that was his modesty and restraint.”

It is hard to know when our "leaders" are talking seriously. On one hand, the House of Representatives and the Senate give the President superpower to declare "enemy combatant" and to detain any american citizen; on the other hand senator Alexander is outraged because the President make four appointments since the Senate keep blocking nominees. Read NDAA

Maybe the reason for keeping hostage the Judiciary is because the country is certainly going to become a tyranny regime and in that case we won't need a Judicial system, just a dozen military courts, an execution wall and a mass grave.