It is past time to get judicial nominees moving in Senate

Ten months ago, this page suggested to the Democratic controlled Senate that enough was enough. The Judiciary Committee had pursued a policy of payback regarding the confirmation of President Bush's nominees to U.S. district and appeals courts to the extent that justice was suffering.
At that time, 15 of the president's nominees, including Ohio Supreme Court Justice Deborah Cook, who had been nominated for a seat of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that sits in Cincinnati, were bottled up in committee. We noted that there were eight openings on the 16-member court, and Nathaniel Jones, a Youngstown native who had been on senior status for seven years, had announced he was retiring.
Today, Justice Cook remains one of 18 appeals court nominees whose confirmation remains in limbo. Only 14 of the president's 32 appeals court nominees have had their nominations voted on by the Senate.
There are those who would argue that the Democrats were giving President Bush only as good as President Clinton got in the closing years of his presidency, when Republicans sat on his nominees. Perhaps so, but it is time to end the stalemate.
A sensible solution
President Bush has now offered a plan that would not only move his nominees along, but would solve the problem for administrations in the future, regardless of which party controlled the White House or the Senate.
Bush's plan would have judges give the White House at least a year of notice in advance of retirement so the search could begin for a successor. The president would commit to submitting a nomination within 180 days of a vacancy. And, in turn, the Senate Judiciary Committee would commit to holding a hearing within 90 days of receiving the nomination and the full Senate to holding a yea-or-nay floor vote within 180 days -- regardless of whether or how the committee has acted.
Democrats claim that Bush's nominees are often ideologically flawed. Fair enough. All they need do is make the case in committee and on the floor that a nominee is unfit for office. Let that nominee be voted up or down. That is the proper advise and consent function of the Senate.
But it is not the function of the Senate to sit on nominations for years, while the load on courts throughout the land multiplies and the cases brought to the courts by U.S. citizens languish.
Politics is an unavoidable part of the process of filling judicial openings. It's built into the system. But politics shouldn't cripple the courts.
Justice delayed is justice denied, and arriving at a system that removes some of the delay from the judicial nominee process makes perfect sense.