“Although a President may fill such vacancies through the use of his recess appointment power … the Senate may act to foreclose this option by declining to recess for more than two or three days at a time over a lengthy period. For example, the Senate did not recess intrasession for more than three days at a time for over a year beginning in late 2007.”
Elena Kagan
Krazen,
Have you noticed I asked what the reaction would be if a Republican President tried this nonsense. No response from the lefties on the Atlas Forum. Hmm.
In 2001, there were 4 vacant seats from Michigan on the 6th circuit court of appeals. President Bush had withdrawn the nomination (made by President Clinton) of Carl Levin's relative to 1 of the 4 seats. Levin was upset at this and decided to block any and all nominees to any and all of Michigan's judicial seats for the entirety of Bush's 1st term. At the time they were also filibustering Miguel Estrada because of his race.
I'm reasonably positive that's not why Estrada was filibustered.
The behavior of Senator Levin in the environment that you're describing was entirely uncalled-for and I can't think of anybody other than semi-pro Internet liberals or Democratic power players themselves who would disagree. There. Are you happy?
Memos between Democrats and liberal groups called him "extremely dangerous" due to "because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment.".
Ted Kennedy also said the following.
On Wednesday, Kennedy told his Democratic colleagues, "If we allow a stealth right-winger on this court, we have only ourselves to blame."
"We must filibuster Miguel Estrada's nomination," he told lawmakers at the weekly Democratic policy lunch. "The White House is almost telling us that they plan to nominate him to the Supreme Court. We can't repeat the mistake we made with [Supreme Court Justice] Clarence Thomas."
You can be your own judge on Miguel Estrada.
As far as Carl Levin and his relative, well, Levin got what he wanted. After stonewalling nominations for 7 years of the Bush Presidency, Bush eventually gave up in mid 2008. He withdrew his own guy and gave Helene White (a Democrat who is married to Levin's cousin) 1 of the seats. She was confirmed very quickly.
The signs show stonewalling seems to work.