From NARF:
Yesterday NARF joined with 28 other national organizations to call for an immediate end to the persistent and destructive obstruction of judicial nominees in the United States Senate. The joint statement released by NARF and others reads as follows:Regardless of where you live or what issues you care about, all Americans deserve a judiciary that works for them. Today’s White House briefing with community leaders, legal experts and advocates for an effective judiciary is an unequivocal statement about that priority.Recent cases demonstrate that no matter the issue – health care, immigration, marriage equality, workers’ rights, employment discrimination, environmental regulation, privacy, and ethics – the courts will continue to play an increasingly important role in the lives of hardworking Americans. But the courts can’t function without judges. Unprecedented obstruction by a minority in the Senate has left the nation with 96 current and future vacancies on the federal courts, leading to a substantial backlog of cases that undermines our system of justice and makes it impossible for most Americans to have their case heard in a timely manner.
Three prominent Oklahomans visited the White House and Capitol Hill on Monday to urge Senate confirmation of federal judicial nominees. The process of approving judges to the federal bench often slows in the months leading up to a presidential election as lawmakers from the party out of power sometimes stall action in hopes that they’ll win the White House and get a chance to replace the nominees with their own.
Former U.S. Attorney Dan Webber, former Seminole Nation Chief Enoch Kelly Haney and Jeremy Aliason, executive director of the National Native American Bar Association, went first to the White House to meet with Attorney General Eric Holder and White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler about the vacancy rate.
And here:
WASHINGTON, DC – Four Arizona community leaders, advocates and legal experts will travel to the nation’s capital on Monday, May 7, to meet with White House officials about the vacancy crisis in America’s federal courts. Nationwide, one in nine federal judgeships are vacant. Nearly one out of every ten federal judgeships remains vacant, and 250 million Americans live in a community with a courtroom vacancy.
***
Local invitees to the White House meeting include:
- Lou Hollingsworth, Partner, Hollingsworth Kelly
- Stan Lubin, Member, American Constitution Society Judicial Nominations Task Force
- Nick Enoch, Member, American Constitution Society Judicial Nominations Task Force
- Patty Ferguson, National President, National Native American Bar Association
They will join approximately 150 individuals from 27 states in a day of discussions with White House staff. A deal between Senate Republicans and Democrats to allow judicial nominations to proceed in the Senate expires May 7th, and the advocates are urging the Senate to hold final up-or-down votes on all pending nominees.
Turtle Talk 