Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says "a certain amount of time is needed" to review the nominee. (Getty)
The best way for President Obama to engineer a Senate confirmation vote on his pick for the Supreme Court before the August recess would be to reveal his choice sooner rather than later.
The average length of time between the nomination announcement and Senate floor vote for Supreme Court nominees since Sandra Day O'Connor's 1981 candidacy is 83 days. (That statistic doesn't include the spectacularly brief and ill-fated 2005 candidacy of Bush White House counsel Harriet Miers to replace O'Connor.)
There are 90 days remaining until the scheduled start of the Senate's August recess, but the White House has said Obama won't reveal his choice this week. As of next Monday, there will be 84 days left until the August recess.
Senate Republicans have made it clear they don't want to be rushed.
"I think there needs to be -- there's a certain amount of time that needs to occur between nomination and confirmation so that you can review the record thoroughly," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday. "We have two recent examples of having done it in an appropriate way -- Justice -- Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito."
The Roberts nomination process took 72 days from announcement to confirmation vote. Alito's lasted 92 days.
The average length of time, since 1981, between nomination announcement and Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, again not counting Miers, is 55 days. If Obama announces his choice soon, the confirmation hearing likely will occur in July.
If Obama makes his nomination by next week, he stands a good chance of seeing a Senate confirmation vote before the August recess. If he waits any longer, that scenario becomes much less likely.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy said Tuesday that the nomination timing will be one of the things he discusses with Obama at the White House on Wednesday.
"We'll have a new justice on the bench before the next term starts" in October, Leahy said.
McConnell's spokesman, Don Stewart, said that meeting "is the beginning of the consultation process and it's our hope that the president follows the lead of previous presidents and has many such meetings over the coming weeks before a nomination is announced."
That's worth repeating. He hopes to see weeks elapse before an announcement.
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Comments
Janet Napolitano would be an excellent choice because she has experience at all levels of government both as Attorney General and as a Governor. She is a female with broad support from her constiuents who have the uttmost confidence in her ability to be objective and bipartisan representing the interests of all Americans!
Posted by: Rohno Geppert
| May 14, 2009 10:31 AM
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