Judicial Branch Archives
Next Supreme Court "Nominee’s Image Will Be Set by Senate Panel"
Much is being written and reported about a successor to Justice John Paul Stevens. Beyond all the hype and drama associated with the president’s selection of a nominee and the media’s commentary about every conceivable factor involving potential candidates, what will stand out as the center of activity in the weeks and months ahead is the constitutional concept of “advice and consent,” especially the confirmation process and committee hearings that will soon commence on Capitol Hill.At the heart of this crucial confirmation process will be the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings that are certain to extend for many days, to be followed, if the nomination is reported out of committee, by an up-or-down vote by the full Senate. These committee hearings will likely be scheduled soon after the president announces his nominee. The Senate hearings will be the key to bringing information into the public domain for consideration by the Judiciary Committee and the full Senate. Committee witnesses will include President Barack Obama’s nominee plus others who are in a position to provide information about the nominee’s background, credentials, qualifications, judicial temperament, character and general fitness for service.
"Nominee’s Image Will Be Set by Senate Panel," by Bill LaForge, Roll Call, April 29, 2010
(Bill LaForge is a lawyer/lobbyist with the Winstead law firm in Washington, D.C., and author of a new book, “Testifying Before Congress,” published by TheCapitol.Net and scheduled for release in mid-2010.)
See also
Supreme Court Nominations
Supreme Court Nominations:
Presidential Nomination, the Judiciary Committee, Proper Scope of Questioning of Nominees, Senate Consideration, Cloture, and the Use of the Filibuster
Compiled by TheCapitol.Net
Authors: Denis Steven Rutkus, Elizabeth Rybicki, Betsy Palmer, Todd Tatelman, Richard S. Beth, Michael Koempel and Judy Schneider
- he procedure for appointing a Supreme Court Justice is provided for by the Constitution in only a few words. The "Appointments Clause" (Article II, Section 2, clause 2) states that the President "shall nominate, and by and with the Advise and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint…Judges of the supreme Court."
The process of appointing Justices has undergone changes over two centuries, but its most basic feature--the sharing of power between the President and Senate--has remained unchanged. To receive lifetime appointment to the Court, a candidate must first be nominated by the President and then confirmed by the Senate. Although not mentioned in the Constitution, an important role is played midway in the process (after the President selects, but before the Senate considers) by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Since the end of the Civil War, almost every Supreme Court nomination received by the Senate has first been referred to and considered by the Judiciary Committee before being acted on by the Senate as a whole.
This book explores the appointment process--from Presidential announcement, Judiciary Committee investigation, confirmation hearings, vote, and report to the Senate, through Senate debate and vote on the nomination.
2009, 208 pages
ISBN: 1587331586 ISBN 13: 978-1-58733-158-9
Softcover book: $19.95
For more information, see SCOTUSNominations.com
April 30, 2010 09:47 AM Link Comments (0)
Supreme Court Nominations: Presidential Nomination, the Judiciary Committee, Proper Scope of Questioning of Nominees, Senate Consideration, Cloture, and the Use of the Filibuster
Supreme Court Nominations
Supreme Court Nominations:
Presidential Nomination, the Judiciary Committee, Proper Scope of Questioning of Nominees, Senate Consideration, Cloture, and the Use of the Filibuster
Compiled by TheCapitol.Net
Authors: Denis Steven Rutkus, Elizabeth Rybicki, Betsy Palmer, Todd Tatelman, Richard S. Beth, Michael Koempel and Judy Schneider
- he procedure for appointing a Supreme Court Justice is provided for by the Constitution in only a few words. The "Appointments Clause" (Article II, Section 2, clause 2) states that the President "shall nominate, and by and with the Advise and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint…Judges of the supreme Court."
The process of appointing Justices has undergone changes over two centuries, but its most basic feature--the sharing of power between the President and Senate--has remained unchanged. To receive lifetime appointment to the Court, a candidate must first be nominated by the President and then confirmed by the Senate. Although not mentioned in the Constitution, an important role is played midway in the process (after the President selects, but before the Senate considers) by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Since the end of the Civil War, almost every Supreme Court nomination received by the Senate has first been referred to and considered by the Judiciary Committee before being acted on by the Senate as a whole.
This book explores the appointment process--from Presidential announcement, Judiciary Committee investigation, confirmation hearings, vote, and report to the Senate, through Senate debate and vote on the nomination.
2009, 208 pages
ISBN: 1587331586 ISBN 13: 978-1-58733-158-9
Softcover book: $19.95
For more information, see SCOTUSNominations.com
April 13, 2010 08:57 AM Link Comments (0)
The Fifth Amendment - Why you don't talk to the police without an attorney
In a brilliant pair of videos, Prof. James Duane of the Regent University School of Law and Officer George Bruch of the Virginia Beach Police Department present a forceful case for never, ever, ever speaking to the police without your lawyer present. Ever. Never, never, never.
"Law prof and cop agree: never ever ever ever ever ever ever talk to the cops about a crime, even if you're innocent," by Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing, July 28, 2008
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution - from Wikipedia
Prof. James Duane, Regent University School of Law
Officer George Bruch, Virginia Beach Police Department
July 29, 2008 09:27 PM Link Comments (0)
Should Federal Judges be paid the same as Members of Congress
For the past 20 years, members of Congress have linked their salaries to those of federal judges as a strategy to avoid the wrath of voters who think lawmakers are overpaid and do not deserve an annual raise.
. . .
Questions about the pay practice have been repeatedly raised in recent years, including by the National Commission on the Public Service, chaired by Paul A. Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve. The commission found that the buying power of judges has fallen behind inflation and that many law school deans, for example, earn more than federal judges.
"Judges, Congress and the Salary Link," by Stephen Barr, The Washington Post, April 25, 2007
A group of former U.S. Senators and Representatives is preparing to call for Congress to end the practice of linking the salaries of federal judges and those of members of Congress, if Congress is hesitant to raise its own salaries. To assist in this effort, Brookings scholars and their colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research produced this paper to describe the history of interbranch salary linkage and to analyze it as policy. (The group includes former Senators Howard Baker, John Danforth, and Sam Nunn, and former Representatives Richard Gephardt, Henry Hyde, Susan Molinari, Leon Panetta and Louis Stokes.)
"How to Pay the Piper: It's Time to Call Different Tunes for Congressional and Judicial Salaries," by Russell R. Wheeler and Michael S. Greve, Issues in Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution, April 2007
More
- Pay and Perquisites of Members of Congress - from TheCapitol.Net
- Chief Justice's Year-End Reports on the Federal Judiciary
- "Salaries of Federal Officials: A Fact Sheet," by Sharon Gressle, CRS Report 98-53, June 25, 2004 (2-page pdf
)
- "Judicial Salary-Setting Policy," by Sharon Gressle, CRS Report RS20278, March 25, 2003 (6-page pdf )
- "The Unpersuasive Chief: Are judges undercompensated? Maybe, but Chief Justice Roberts doesn’t make the case," by Matthew J. Franck, January 2, 2007
- "Underpaid And Overworked: The National Disgrace of Undercompensating Federal Judges, While Allowing Their Workload to Balloon," by John W. Dean, FindLaw, November 3, 2006
- "Insecure About their Future: Why Some Judges Leave the Bench," The Third Branch, February, 2002
May 8, 2007 10:07 AM Link Comments (0)
Covering the Supreme Court
6. Scalia is just as funny as you've heard. (See this letter to the editor of the Boston Herald after a reporter misinterpreted his Sicilian chin-scratching in Mass as an obscene gesture.) But Chief Justice Roberts is staging a coup to replace him as the justice who gets the most laughs. Scalia wins this round for quantity, but a Roberts' quip gets the hardest laughs, at the expense of one of the arguing lawyers. I don't know if it's considered a compliment or a good sign to one side if they provide fodder that gets a humorous diss from a justice.
"Supreme amusement," by Greg Piper, The Smoking Room, March 31, 2006
March 31, 2006 06:27 AM Link Comments (0)
"The Sweet Science," by Jacob Stein
Just what legal reasoning is defies a clear, unambiguous definition.As I write I have before me my collection of books dealing with the subject. You will understand from the titles why the judge would have paused: The Nature of the Judicial Process by Benjamin N. Cardozo (1921); The Folklore of Capitalism by Thurmond Arnold (1937); Law and Other Things by Lord Macmillan (1939); The Mysterious Science of the Law by Daniel J. Boorstin (1941); Think Clearly by Moxley and Fife (1941); An Introduction to Legal Reasoning by Edward H. Levi (1948); The Nature of Legal Argument by O. C. Jensen (1957); Law as Large as Life: A Natural Law for Today and the Supreme Court as Its Prophet by Charles P. Curtis (1959); The Rules of Chaos by Stephen Vizinczey (1969); Law and Morality by Louis Blom-Cooper (1976); Tactics of Legal Reasoning by Pierre Schlag and David Skover (1986); Logic for Lawyers: A Guide to Clear Legal Thinking by Ruggero J. Aldisert (1989); The Problems of Jurisprudence by Richard A. Posner (1990); Unreason within Reason: Essays on the Outskirts of Rationality by A. C. Graham (1992); An Introduction to Law and Legal Reasoning by Steven J. Burton (1995); Imagining the Law: Common Law and the Foundations of the American Legal System by Norman F. Cantor (1997); and A Clearing in the Forest: Law, Life, and Mind by Steven L. Winter (2001).
"The Sweet Science," by Jacob Stein, Washington Lawyer, March, 2006 (Jacob Stein is the author of "Legal Spectator & More")
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March 1, 2006 02:57 PM Link Comments (0)
