Welcome, if you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or subscribe to our email newsletter. Thanks for visiting!

The good people at Wispolitics.com are providing excellent coverage of the Republican State Convention on their Convention Blog. And I think the readers of this blog would be very interested in their post on the Eastern and Western district judicial vacancies.

The president wants to nominate candidates to fill two openings on the federal bench in Wisconsin at the same time, but U.S. Sens. Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold have yet to recommend names for the Western District spot, causing a delay, U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner said Friday.

Sensenbrenner said he feared it could mean the Western District opening would not be filled until at least 2010 because time was running out for this president to nominate someone, and then next one may need until late 2009 to forward a candidate.

As the senior elected congressional Republican, Sensenbrenner nominates members of the Nominating Commission that interviews candidates and fowards names to the 2 US Senators and senior Republican, who in turn forward those names on to the White House.

Kohl and Feingold have already forwarded on four names to the White House for the Eastern District vacancy created by Judge Randa’s retirement, but the White House has not yet selected one of the four as the President’s nominee. For the Western District, Judge Shabaz’s seat, the Senators have not forwarded on names culled from the Commission’s list of five.

Kohl and Feingold both sit on the Judiciary Committee, so if they wanted these seats filled, they could get quick action once the White House makes a nomination. The President needs to act quickly on the Eastern District, because the window for Senate action on any judicial nominations is closing fast. As we saw during the showdown on judges a few weeks ago, this is a tense area on the legislative calendar. In the interview, Rep. Sensenbrenner indicated that the WH wanted to submit the two nominations together, which is why they are waiting.

Kohl and Feingold’s continued delay in submitting a list for the Western District vacancy has effectively ended the possibility that the seat will be filled by President Bush. Their delay in submitting names to the White House, and their decision to cut two qualified candidates, may have prevented the Eastern District seat from being filled promptly as well.

Of course, perhaps that is the plan - they’re playing the wait and see game in the hopes that President Clinton or President Obama gets to fill the seat with a nominee from the liberal side of the bench.

• Remember when he was lampooned? - September 4th, 2008
• The Media has it both ways - September 3rd, 2008
• New MULS Law faculty blog - September 2nd, 2008
• Concluding Convention Thoughts - September 1st, 2008
• Another Nixon Observation - August 30th, 2008