After a little less than a year as president, Donald Trump has already began to solidify a widespread belief that the “single most important legacy” of his administration is to reshape the federal bench. Since his inauguration on January 20, 2017, President Trump has made a total of 58 federal judiciary nominations as of October 2nd, two of which were unanimously considered “not qualified” by the ABA. Only two out of about 1,800 nominees had been unanimously voted “not qualified by the panel from 1989 to 2016 (27 years).
This is, however, not without reason. While all but one president utilized the American Bar Association’s (ABA) screening prior to the nominations of federal judges, Trump has bypassed the screening process in his judicial nomination and completed the screening after the nominations have been publicly announced. As a result, “nearly 8% of the Trump’s screened nominees were voted as ‘not qualified’ by a majority of the panel,” whereas only “0.7% of judicial nominees were rated ‘not qualified’ by at least a majority of the ABA panel.” Previous presidents have made nominees deemed “not qualified” by the ABA, however, because they were screened prior to being publicly nominated, past president often opted to dropping these candidates.
This spike in nominees rated “not qualified” is quite concerning. The ABA’s evaluation guidelines “focuses strictly on professional qualifications: integrity, professional competence and judicial temperament,” and are made in order to assist the Senate Judiciary Committee’s decision of whether or not individuals should be confirmed by the Senate, but the sudden spike in “not qualified” nominees is “very worrisome” as Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein tells Business Insider. The ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee relays her series of concerns as: (1) it raises questions on the quality of nominees, (2) hearings are scheduled before the completion of ABA evaluations which are important tools for a senator’s evaluation, and (3) the Trump administration is rushing controversial circuit court nominees to minimize scrutiny.
Though there are doubts casted by Senate Judiciary Committee chair, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, about the importance of the ABA rating and the ABA’s bias against conservative candidates, it is important to cite that Republicans have praised the ABA’s rating for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. Ultimately, Trump’s bypassing of the ABA evaluation prior to public announcement is the result of his attempts to reshape the federal bench, which, as a result, has raised concerns of quality of these judicial nominees.
- Do you think the ABA’s evaluation is important to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation of judicial nominees? Why or why not?
- What are your thoughts on the nomination of Gorsuch and do you think presidents should be allowed to bypass judicial ratings agencies before making his nominations?
- Is the ABA biased?
3.The question that whether or not ABA is biased or not is politically controversial. On one hand, conservatives allege the standing committee is biased against Republican nominees. However, the ABA and its defenders argue that ABA rates nominees objectively based on their qualifications. The main goal for ABA is to select judges that will protect people charged and their rights. The political party and ideology that a judge associates themselves with can inevitably cause biased views for the ABA. ABA wants to appoint judges who are more liberal then conservative and will defend individuals constitutional rights without any political pressure in the current times.
ReplyDelete1) I think that the ABA's ratings of a judicial nominee is not as important to the Senate Judiciary Committee as people think. The ABA is a private organization with no connection to the federal government besides rating its judges. Seeing that the ABA is slightly bias towards Democrats and has no say in what the government does, it is more likely that the Judiciary Committee decides entirely on their own.
ReplyDeleteWithout a doubt, the ABA is biased. But, I think that this bias shifts as the politics of Washington shift. So, as Donald Trump is president now, the ABA should technically have a slight liberal pull. Hopefully there will be a balance achieved so that the ABA will appear to be stable/unbiased. If people like Trump continue, however, to undermine the ABA, then the organization itself will become mundane.
ReplyDelete2. I believe that the president has the right to nominate whoever he pleases. I think that if something were to change in that regard, it would be due to a legislative change. Congress continues to have the right to confirm supreme court nominations, which allows them to have power over these decisions as well.
ReplyDelete1. I believe that the ABA's rating is one of the most important factors because as a judge it is key you know your law and have served as one. Lots of nominees for Donald have been unprofessional and uneducated people for their position. If you were testifying you would hope the judges know the law and understand the rulings of court system. If an uneducated person is supposed to make country wide changes it would create havoc. The framers originally made the electoral college to protect against the uneducated ruining the county. This is the same idea on how we can not put uneducated judiciary member because they can not make well thought out decisions where they see the law and know previous cases.
ReplyDelete1. I think the ABA's ratings of justices should be seriously considered during confirmation hearings of the justices. The senate judiciary committee has an obligation to make sure no one grossly incompetent becomes a federal judge. however currently the judges might not listen to the ABA and instead push Trumps nominations through, because they think that the ABA is biassed against conservatives.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the ABA should consider juststice ratings in their hearings because of the Judiciary committee's responsibility to make sure we have informed and qualified judges.
ReplyDeleteI think the ABA’s evaluation is important to the confirmation of judicial nominees. Supreme Court justices serve a lifelong term, so we cannot have incompetent justices serve for the Supreme Court. Justices make important rulings that set the precedent for future cases, so we need to have qualified justices to be role models.
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