Transcripts For CSPAN Judicial Nominations Process 20180111

And thank you all for joining us this evening. For the conversation, the judicial nomination process. Whats the future . Or w. T. F. Im the director of Strategic Engagement at the American Constitution Society and i have the distinct privilege of working on the very relevant and dynamic topic of judicial nominations and amplifying the importance of the courts to the issues near and dear to all of us. Lena a. C. S. Believes that law should be a force to improve the lives of all people. A nonprofit and Nonpartisan Organization, a. C. S. Works for positive change by shaping debate on the vitally important legal and constitutional issues and we have networks of lawyers, law student, judges and policymakers all across the country dedicated to those ideas. I encourage to you visit our website, acslaw. Org, attend our events, and get involved in our local and student lawyer chapters all across the country. For those of you here in d. C. , please get in touch with our d. C. Lawyer chapter, many of those leaders are here in the room this evening and are happy to speak with you more. We also ask those of you on social media to follow acs on a. C. S. On twitter. Please follow us at acslaw. Theyll be live tweeting this event and we encourage you to join the d. C. Chapter in using acstalk. Swtf and and you can also view photos of the event on the d. C. Chapters Instagram Page acs underscore d. C. I want to take a moment to thank the d. C. Lawyer chapter, the chapter has been steadfast in their attention to the courts and the issue of nominations, with leaders contributing to Research Efforts and im also deeply grateful to the entire chapter and particular susan for hosting this exciting conversation this evening. And a special thank you to christine and the entire Leadership Conference on civil and human rights for hosting us here tonight in their beautiful space. The importance of the courts and judges cannot be overstated. Judges are on the front line of defending rule of law, and they decide cases every single day on issues that we all care about. From immigration to who can enter our country, to Reproductive Health care access, to Voting Rights, to consumer protection, to clean water, to lgbtq rights. While much attention has been focused on the Supreme Court, there are nearly 900 judges that serve on the u. S. District and Circuit Courts of appeals. And they decide the vast majority of cases. Its also important to consider closely who is being nominated to these courts because quite often these are the judges who are considered for future Supreme Court vacancies. For example, Justice Gorsuch, who was elevated to the Supreme Court last year, had previously served on the 10th Circuit Court of apeels. We have a president who regularly denigrates the judiciary and individual judgments judges and we have a Senate Majority leader in Judiciary Committee chair what thank are rushing the contribution of this president s nominees. There are more than 150 current and known future visa can vacancies on our federal courts which represents nearly 20 of the federal judiciary. This is, unfortunately, by design. After the Senate Majority took the disgraceful step of holding open the Supreme Court seat that president obama nominated chief judge garland for, he they also kept open more than 100 lower Court Vacancies in hopes that they could confirm nominees they were confident in to fulfill their agenda. And recently there have been proposals calling on congress to dramatically expand the number of lifetime judgeships, so that this administration could even filmore of them to, quote, reverse the judicial legacy of president obama. The white house and Senate Majority have been aggressive in fulfilling their agenda to stop the courts. To date the senate has confirmed 23 lifetime judicial appointments. One as we know to the Supreme Court. And 12 to the Circuit Court of appeals. By comparison, in president obamas first year in office, the senate only confirmed 13 judges. Three to the Circuit Courts. This administration has been aggressive in naming nominees, often without complication from senators, bucking long standing practice. They have been embarrassed by some of the symptoms of their rushed process, having to reconsider moving forward, for example, with three incredibly troubling nominees. However, the concerning trends that we have seen in these nominees remain in is some of the others. Nominees, for example, who lack legal experience, lack experience in the jurisdiction which theyve been nominated, come from strong ideological backgrounds, have made deeply troubling public, sometimes unanimous, statements. They may have not received a qualified rating from the a. B. A. Standing committee on the federal judiciary. Or are not fully forth coming in their senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire or in their hearing. Many senators have tried to be a check on this administration and have asserted their constitutional responsibility to provide advice and consent by withholding their blue slips, those little blue pieces of pape that are significant nat to the senate Judiciary Committee chair that the senators from the state where that nominee would serve are supportive of that nomination. The long standing practice has been that the senate committeer Judiciary Committee chair would only proceed with that nomination if it had the support of both of their home state senators. Yet just last month the senate Judiciary Committee chair made the unfortunate decision that he will be the sole ash tror whether a nominee moves forward. Here talk to about this and more is a panel of amazing women, working with them in many of our other incredible partner, many of them who are in the room tonight, is a true horn. They are all relentless, fiercely smart, funny and truex perts on this topic. So to introduce them and this panel is jennifer, jen is the White House Correspondent and congressional reporter for the huffington post. Shes one of the most astute reporters who has long covered the judicial nomination pros sess and shes able to process and shes able to seemingly really funny, be really funny about delving into a lot of the various aspects of this otherwise, sometimes mundane process. With incredible perspective and so we are so thankful for jen and the panel for being here. Thank you. Jen wow. Go on. [laughter] no, really. Come back. Hi. Welcome to judicial nominations w. T. F. Make of that title what you will. I will introduce our panelists. Seated next to me is kristen clark. Shes the president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for civil rights under law. Sitting next to her is christine lucious, executive b. P. For policy. At the Leadership Conference on civil and human rights. And on the end is sharon mcgowan, director of strategy. So well jump right in. Between all of your backgrounds and your wealth of knowledge on judges and the law, in your years of experience combined, covering this the judicial branch, how would you sum up the last year in one word in terms of trumps judicial nominations . One word. Earth shattering. I guess thats one word. Ok. High ofen as ied hyphenated. It is. Put the little high ofens next to the word. I gave you guys these questions in advance. One word. [laughter] you can tell people who have tried to get over the word limit. My one word. The many word the one word i ould use is revealing. So, have you each of you can weigh in on this, have you been surprised at all by the last year and trumps style of nominating and rushing people to the process . I guess by style i mean hes been very fast. Hes been pretty sloppy. And his judicial picks have been heavily shaped by right wing groups like the federalist society. Is this what you expected a year or so ago . So, you know, as a civil rights lawyer, the courts matter. And i think that courts matter for all americans. The courts play an incredibly Important Role in american life. There tends to be a lot of focus on the United States Supreme Court. But the reality is that theyre just a handful, a few dozen cases that get heard and resolved by the u. S. Supreme court. There are tens of thousands of cases that move through the Federal District and federal Circuit Courts that touch every aspect of our lives. And i think that historically we have seen president s really respect the integrity of the courts and put forth nominees who sometimes invite debate, put h nominees who sometimes you know, are polarizing. But historically weve seen president s put forth nominees who can garner some degree of bipartisan support. And that hasnt been the case with President Trumps nominees. And i think thats because he has been so singularly focused on putting forth radical ideologues who fall far outside the legal mainstream. Hes put forth people of locale ber, as we saw with Matthew Peterson. And he has been relentless in putting forth young white men for vacancies that exist across our federal courts. And i think that thats a shame. White men make up about 31 of the u. S. Population. But have represented the lions share, more than 80 , of this president s nominations. I think that sends a really dangerous message to africanamericans, latinos, to women, to the Lgbt Community. People who represent the highest levels of their Legal Profession and could ably occupy seats on these courts. So, what were seeing from President Trump, i think its markedly different from anything that weve seen from a president in modern time. Was this what you expected heading into the Trump Administration . I knew things would be bad but i didnt think they would be that extreme. And thats what weve seen from this president. Just nominees who are incredible outliars. Who hold abhorrent views on civil rights issues. Abhorrent views about lgbt people. People who have dedicated their lives to opposing civil rights. These are the kinds of people that he is focused on with laser prevision, on putting into these lifetime positions on our courts. I would say that what it probably shouldnt surprise us that hes moved this quickly or that they are this extreme. Because during the campaign, when he was trying to convince republicans to choose him as their nominee, he used judges and judicial nominations as a way to prove his ideology and his that he was worthy of their support. And during that process, he bragged about and got applause lines on litmus tests about judges he would nominate if he became president. And he also outsourced the Selection Process to two rightwing interest groups. And what i think weve seen already is they are not very good at vetting. Or maybe theyre good at vetting, it depends on whether you think this is a bug or a feature. Of his judicial nominations. But during the campaign, trump, then candidate trump, made judicial nominations in that he wanted to remake the courts and he would have a litmus test on reproductive freedom and on guns. He bragged about it. He got applause lines about it. And he clearly indicated he was going to do this outsourcing that he has done. I dont think, though, when we saw that we expected that there would be people blogging in defense of the k. K. K. Or that they would be so extremely hostile to lgbtq individuals. You know, i think that kristens right. The courts matter enormously, but i think we are surprised at how bad, how biased, how hostile the civil rights theyve been. I think we expected, given the campaign promises, that they would be extreme. But im not sure we expected the full dimensions of them. And i would just echo a lot of what christine said and in many ways my choice of the one word, which was a oneword answer, gold star, thank you, in terms of revealing, is that i think in many ways the Trump Administration has revealed much about itself through the nominees that it has chosen. And in many ways Senate Republicans have revealed much about themselves in how they have conducted themselves. And i think i completely agree that many people sort of had the narrative, whether you believe it or not, that they were willing to hold their nose and vote for trump because of the courts. And to see what Mitch Mcconnell was willing to do and the norms he was willing to disregard with respect to judicial nominees when president obama was in office, you know, weve always sort of talked about the fact that there has been, in many ways, an intensity gap between our view of the world and those on the other side. And their understanding they have been lying in wait for this moment. This is the payoff. And so in some ways i am not surprised by the caliber of the nominees. In part because certainly the Lgbt Community knew what we were getting with mike pence and frankly, you know, i somehow suspect that President Trump is not reviewing the dossiers of these nominees. Carefully. When deciding who to put forth. But there are individuals like mike pence who absolutely sort of knew that this was part of what they would get by signing onto this agenda. And so to the extent that, as christine said, is this a function of no investigate or very careful vetting, and theyre going to keep throwing out nominees like this until we can beat one back, which makes the jeff mattier story so interesting, and im sure well get to that. In terms of what is the exception and what the is the new norm. But i think it really does demonstrate that there is an unwillingness to actually serve in that role of a check and of a balance on these excesses out of the executive branch, that i think in some ways is sort of the most troubling sort of revelation over the last year and weve seen some unlikely defenders of the courts that i dont know if i would have put senator kennedy from louisiana on my short list of people who would have been there making at least some attempt to defend the dignity of the courts. I wish his list were more can patience, of course. But i do think that this is a snowball that has picked up momentum as its rolled down the hill. How does trump already change the federal bench . When youre in . Obviously get to a Supreme Court nominee confirmed which is what a lot of people focus on the most. But hes gotten how many district and Circuit Court nominees confirmed . I know he got 12 through in one year which is a record. I have the statistic here. Theres more than any president has gotten confirmed in their first year since the courts were created. In 1891. 12 Circuit Court nominees in one year. Thats amazing. But, what do you think that his that trumps biggest effect has been on the bench sflrd is it the Supreme Court . Or is it some of these Circuit Court judges . Do you have any thoughts on that . I think that we have to look at the full picture. The ability to appoint someone to the Supreme Court so early on in his tenure was significant. We are now into term two, with judge gorsuch, and were already seeing that he is closely alined with Justice Thomas on a number of cases. And i think he is proving to be a justice who matches the litmus test, the ideological litmus test, that this president has been using for nominees across the board. A litmus test that was shaped and defined in large part by the Heritage Foundation and the federalist society. This is a president whos all about identifying socalled originalists and texturalists who are going to bring with them a goal of very narrowly reading the constitution and rolling back a lot of the protections that weve seen emerge through the courts over the past decade. , so the Supreme Court is just the tip of the iceberg. I think that he has move forward at a lightning pace in confirming a Record Number of judges to the district and Circuit Courts in year one. Former judge of the Southern District of new york has offered a lot of commentary about what President Trump is doing with respect to judicial nominations. And i think that shes exactly right when shes identified this as perhaps his Lasting Legacy. Because these are young judges outside the mainstream who will be there for decades issuing rulesings on issues that impact ll aspects of american life. Issues on corporations and issues that touch all as expects f our lives. Were already seeing and feeling the impact and this president has been racing forward and moving nominees at a pace that exceeds that of any other president in recent times. Christine i agree with everything kristen said. I think also her earlier