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Estrada filibuster to continue
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by Juhn Buchel
Friday, March 7, 2003
This Thursday U.S. Senate Democrats threw a wrench into President Bush’s plans to place a Hispanic judge on a federal appeals court.
Estrada is a 41-year old Honduran immigrant who was a member of the Justice Department during President Clinton’s administration and whom Bush nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia.
While with the Justice Department, Estrada wrote a series of memoranda critiquing a number of U.S. Supreme Court rulings. Estrada will not answer questions from Senate Democrats about the opinions, and the White House has not authorized the release of the Justice Department papers.
This has aroused suspicions among Senate Democrats, who feel that if the paper trail surrounding Estrada were revealed, it would depict him as a more hard-line conservative than he appears to be.
“For a seat on this court, the Senate needs to be confident that a nominee, if confirmed, will be fair, impartial and not devoted to advancing an ideological agenda,” said Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis. “Based on the record now before us, I do not have that confidence in Mr. Estrada.”
Bush nominated Estrada last November, and since the appointment has come up for review, the Senate Democrats have been filibustering. Thursday the Senate voted 55 to 44 in favor of cloture, short of the majority to stop the filibuster, inciting Bush.
“The decision today by 44 senators to continue to filibuster and block a vote on this nomination is a disgrace,” Bush said.
Bush and other Republican leaders have said that they will not let the Estrada issue drop and have called for an end to partisan politics.
“I will stand by Miguel Estrada’s side until he is sworn in as a judge,” Bush said. “Let each senator vote as he or she thinks best, but give the man a vote.”
Howard Schweber, assistant professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, said that this is the first time Democrats have posed a significant challenge to the Republican majority, adding that Bush was not eager to let the Democratic minority push him around.
“The fact is, a successful filibuster does not mean the Republicans cannot bring the nomination for Estrada up again,” Schweber said.
It has been speculated that Bush would like to place Estrada on the federal court of appeals to groom him for a possible future appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice John Paul Stevens is the oldest justice sitting on the Court, and if Bush won a second term in the White House, he would have a good chance of making a Supreme Court nomination.
Currently the Supreme Court features unprecedented diversity in its justices. Two women, two Jewish justices and one of only two non-white justices in national history currently serve on the court.
In the past, presidents had been careful to keep regional diversity in the court, but now racial and ideological diversity is more of a factor.
It has also been suggested that Bush has a personal rapport with Estrada and that he feels appointing a Latino to a high-ranking position in the courts would be politically advantageous.
Schweber said Latino support was instrumental for Bush’s political success in his campaigns for both governor of Texas and U.S. president.
“Bush has always had a very strong showing in the Hispanic population, which is often politically conservative and in line with his views,” Schweber said.
