Here we go again: with the right wing clamoring for Senate action on more judicial nominees, Senate Majority Leader Frist announced last week that he will push forward some of the most controversial nominees this month. Two who are high on the list are Brett Kavanaugh, nominated to the D.C. Circuit (generally considered second in importance only to the U.S. Supreme Court), and Terrence Boyle, nominated to the Fourth Circuit.
Kavanaugh, who currently serves in the White House, has generated opposition because (among other things) he has had little relevant experience (almost no litigation experience, for example) and a number of questions have been raised about his record that have never been explored. His Judiciary Committee hearing was two years ago, and since then his rating by the American Bar Association has been downgraded, but the request of Democrats on the Judiciary Committee for another hearing to look into his current record and his role in controversies that have come to light since his hearing – like the President’s domestic spying program and detainee policies – has not been granted by Committee Chairman Arlen Specter. The Committee is likely to vote on this nomination this week and Senator Frist said he wants a Senate confirmation vote by Memorial Day.
Judge Boyle, who is currently a district court judge in North Carolina, is at least as controversial if not more so. A former aide to Senator Jesse Helms, he has a very troubling civil rights record. He has overlooked established legal standards and issued decisions that fly in the face of anti-discrimination laws, including in cases involving discrimination against women. On top of that, it was disclosed just this week that he has presided over lawsuits in which he had an interest in one of the parties – and even ruled in favor of those parties – in apparent violation of judicial ethics standards. Salon.com reports that since he was first nominated to the Fourth Circuit in 2001, he has issued orders in at least nine cases that involved five different corporations in which he reported stock holdings.
Senator Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, reiterated the need for another Kavanaugh hearing, expressed amazement at the new Boyle disclosures, and noted that other nominees have been withdrawn in the recent past due to ethical lapses – and that Claude Allen, who was once nominated to the Fourth Circuit, was recently arrested for fraud and might have been on the court had the Senate not slowed action on his nomination a few years ago. As Senator Leahy said, these events highlight the importance of serious scrutiny by the Committee and the full Senate to assess the fitness of nominees for lifetime appointments to our federal courts. We’ll soon see whether his colleagues in the Senate have learned the same lesson or prefer the role of rubber stamp.
