Confirm the Quintet

ALEXANDRIA, VA— The American Conservative Union, the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots conservative lobbying organization, today expressed its appreciation and strong support for the five, long-delayed judicial re-nominations President Bush announced yesterday, and urged the senate to confirm each judge when the fall session begins next week.

“ACU salutes the president for his leadership in fighting for these outstanding jurists,” said J. William Lauderback, ACU’s executive vice president. “It is now time for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to use this second chance to make good on his repeated promises to confirm the quintet.”

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has called the nominees “extremely divisive.” The alleged divineness, however, derives from his own party’s obstructionism.

Consider William James Haynes III of Virginia. As general counsel of the Department of Defense, Haynes was nominated to the Fourth Circuit Court in 2003. Three weeks later, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved him. Yet—more than two and a half years later—Haynes remains in limbo. The reason: by way of the filibuster, senate Democrats have prevented a simple up-or-down vote.

Similarly, consider William Myers of Idaho, who President Bush nominated to the Ninth Circuit in 2003. More than a year later, the senate finally voted on cloture. The judge lost that vote, but the GOP has since gained four senate seats, and so, with just a few weeks before lawmakers break for their fall campaigns, it is high time for a second cloture vote.

“As the GOP gains in the senate in 2002 and 2004 made clear, conservatives consider judicial nominations a priority,” continued Lauderback. “Alas, a failure of leadership among our elected Republicans—a pusillanimous approach to principle—has postponed this priority, unfairly impeding both judges and justice. If not rectified soon, these mistakes will surely jeopardize the Republican majority in the November midterms.”

In addition to Judges Myers and Haynes, the other nominees are Terrence Boyle of North Carolina to the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, VA; Michael Brunson Wallace of Mississippi to the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans; and Norman Randy Smith of Idaho to the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco.