The time has come for the White House to get moving and send to the U.S. Senate candidates to fill three vacancies on the Colorado federal trial bench.
Dockets are clogging and time is growing short to get them through the confirmation process before the country is consumed by the presidential election.
We surely hope that someone in Washington is thinking beyond politics and is concerned about the negative effects on the administration of justice in Colorado.
Colorado’s U.S. District Court, which has seven full-time judges, currently has three vacancies. Two judges have taken senior status, which means they are semi-retired and typically work at a reduced level. The third vacancy occurred with the recent death of Judge Phillip S. Figa, who had been battling brain cancer.
There has been no shortage of time and effort expended by Colorado’s U.S. senators in vetting potential candidates. Independently, Republican Wayne Allard and Democrat Ken Salazar compiled lists and submitted them to the White House.
The senators’ lists overlapped on two names, so there is some measure of concurrence. They came to consensus on University of Colorado counsel Christine Arguello and Greg Goldberg, a partner at the law firm of Holland & Hart. The lists contain names of other well-respected candidates who have experience as lawyers, judges and prosecutors.
The last recommendation — Salazar’s list of three — was submitted six weeks ago, and we’re still waiting for some movement from the White House.
Meanwhile, Colorado’s federal judges, already overloaded, are falling ever further behind.
The situation has caught the attention of the Faculty of Federal Advocates, a group of lawyers practicing in federal court, which wrote a letter urging the president to act. On Monday, Salazar also sent a letter to the White House, asking that nominees be recommended to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Time is of the essence. Choosing federal judges is a laborious process, which has become divisive in recent decades.
The president sends nominees to the U.S. Senate so its members can “advise and consent,” which is laid out in the Constitution. What the Constitution doesn’t describe is the political machinations.
Democrats, who control the Senate, would have an incentive to stall nominees from a Republican president whose tenure is measured in months. Judgeships are lifelong appointments and Democrats would like to have vacancies to fill if they can win the presidency.
But Republicans also have an incentive to stall, particularly if they can find a way to blame Democrats. There’s nothing that unifies the conservative base like being able to blame Democrats for holding up the confirmation of Republican-referred nominees.
Meanwhile, fewer judges means more cases for those remaining. The day-to-day application of law grows slower. It means less time for judges to read and decide motions, and perhaps even trial delays.
We hope to see the logjam loosen soon, with the nomination of competent candidates whose service would be in the best interests of justice — not politics.
