Reno Urges Republicans To Confirm Clinton Judges

WASHINGTON (TIME Daily, June 28) -- Attorney General Janet Reno has called on Senate Republicans to put aside partisan politics to fill long-empty vacancies on the federal bench.

"So far, six months into the second session of the 104th Congress, the Senate has confirmed not one of the 43 judicial nominees pending," Reno told reporters at her weekly press conference. About 68 of the 847 full-time federal judgeships are now vacant, a number that has steadily increased during the Clinton Administration.

The reason, Reno charges, is politics: although the Judiciary Committee has approved 23 Clinton nominees, not one has come before the Senate for a vote. Not so, replied a spokesman for Trent Lott, who noted the Senate majority leader had tried to send four nominations to the floor earlier this month, only to be blocked by Montana Democrat Max Baucus.

Reno challenged the conventional wisdom that political battles typically mean judges are not confirmed in election years. "In 1992," she argued, "with President Bush running for re-election and Democrats in the majority in Congress, the Senate confirmed 66 judges, more than one-third of President Bush's 195 judicial appointments."

One consequence of vacant seats is a slowdown in civil proceedings. According to Assistant Attorney General Eleanor Acheson, an understaffed judiciary means that it now takes three years to get a civil case to trial in Minnesota.

Reno Urges Republicans To Confirm Clinton Judges

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