{"id":778,"date":"2011-04-21T13:14:10","date_gmt":"2011-04-21T17:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=778"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:57:41","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:57:41","slug":"obamas-judicial-nominations-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/04\/21\/obamas-judicial-nominations-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama\u2019s Judicial Nominations Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jessica Jackson<\/em><\/p>\n

Last night I had the pleasure of seeing President Obama speak in person at the San Francisco Masonic Center. \u00a0During his hour-long speech, the President touched on several points, including the legislative accomplishments of the last two years and the issues he hopes to work on in the next few. \u00a0The speech was incredibly inspirational, but there was, in my mind, one point of concern, which came when the President discussed the possibility of\u00a0the Health Care reform legislation never reaching implementation<\/a>. \u00a0Since making its way through the Congress, the Health Care bill has been litigated in several states. \u00a0These legal battles should send a very clear message to the President: If you want all your hard to work to pay off, you\u2019ve got to fill the judiciary.<\/p>\n

Currently there are\u00a092 vacancies\u00a0<\/a>in the federal judiciary out of a total 875 seats, a problem recently discussed in an\u00a0HLPR article<\/a>\u00a0by Michigan State professor Brian Kalt. \u00a0With only 46 seats pending nominations, one has to wonder why filling our judiciary is not a higher priority. \u00a0Whether this problem stems from a\u00a0lack of judicial nominations from the white house<\/a>\u00a0or a refusal to push confirmations on the senate floor, the judicial vacancies have reached a point of crisis with hundreds of Americans being denied proper access to justice.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What makes the issue even more perplexing is that judicial nominations are not exactly a hot button issue. \u00a0Last night as the President spoke about his plans for progress in the future, people called out the issues they hope he will address; tax cuts for the wealthy, sustainable energy, a woman\u2019s right to choose, gay marriage. \u00a0Even the\u00a0plight of the wild horses<\/a>\u00a0was raised by an audience member. \u00a0But not once did anyone mention the vacant judiciary.<\/p>\n

Why isn\u2019t the public more concerned? One might blame a general lack of knowledge about the role of Article III courts. \u00a0Or one might simply argue that there are simply too many other, much sexier, topics stealing the limelight. \u00a0In any case, the White House and the Senate should come together to address this issue immediately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jessica Jackson Last night I had the pleasure of seeing President Obama speak in person at the San Francisco Masonic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-cy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}