Baker fills state’s federal judgeship

— The Senate confirmed Kristine Baker to a lifetime appointment as U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas on a voice vote Monday, ending the latest partisan standoff over judicial nominations.

With Baker’s confirmation, all of the state’s federal judgeships have been filled.

Baker, 41, is a partner at the Little Rock law firm of Quattlebaum, Grooms, Tull & Burrow. She has litigated commercial, employment and First Amendment cases during her 14-year career in the private sector, and served as a law clerk to Judge Susan Webber Wright in the Eastern District.

Both of Arkansas’ senators, Democrat Mark Pryor and Republican John Boozman, gave Baker glowing reviews.

“She has a record of distinguished service,” Pryor said.

Added Boozman: “Kris will do a great job as a federal judge.”

Baker’s confirmation will end a “judicial emergency” in the Eastern District, which has had a vacancy since September 2008, when Judge James Moody took senior status, which normally reduces a judge’s caseload.

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts designated 35 circuit and district courts as being in a state of emergency based on their caseloads and judicial vacancies.

Pryor said that Moody had “filled the gap” in the court’s caseload, despite his senior status.

Baker’s confirmation cleared the last of 17 nominations that were in limbo in March when Democrats and Republicans in the upper chamber clashed over how to proceed.

Republicans stalled on several nominations after President Barack Obama made appointments to the National Labor Relations Board during a Senate recess, enabling them to take their posts without Senate approval.

“Senate Republicans thought that was grossly unfair and unconstitutional,” Boozman said.

Republicans further put on the brakes when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pushed to confirm 17 pending nominees all at once.

“Nobody had ever done that before without clearing it with the minority leader,” Boozman said. “It was a real breach of trust and tradition.”

Pryor said Republican concerns were “a fiction.”

“This goes beyond the NLRB issue,” he said. “This has been a challenge ever since President Obama has been in office.”

Judicial nominations have become a key battleground between Democrats and Republicans in recent decades.The parties disagree about the size of the problem and whether it’s getting worse.

The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, for instance, compared the first terms of the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations with Obama’s first three years in office. They found that 82.4 percent of Clinton’s nominees were confirmed by a Senate that alternated between Democrats and Republicans. During Bush’s first term, 77.8 percent were confirmed by a Senate that switched from Democratic to Republican control.

By contrast, the Democrats say, Obama saw 71.2 percent of his nominees confirmed by a Democratic Senate.

The average wait time for a district court nominee to get a Senate vote after clearing committee increased from 25 days during Bush’s first term, when the Senate was under Republican control for a majority of time, to 94 days in Obama’s first term, when Democrats had a majority.

“They have to wait, and wait, and wait to get a vote,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who said the slow process “shows such a blatant disregard for the integrity and independence of our federal judiciary.”

Republicans countered that Obama was slow to send judicial nominations to the senate.

Using federal vacancies in Arkansas as an example, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told his colleagues on the Senate floor Monday that it took a Democratic Senate 17 months to confirm Bush’s nomination of U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes in Arkansas’ Eastern District. By contrast, he said, Baker was confirmed in about six months.

He said Obama “holds the key” to ending judicial emergencies and installing more judges on the bench, but has failed to provide nominees to fill 47 of the open seats.

“Only the president can make nominations to the Senate,” Grassley said.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 05/08/2012

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