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The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

GOP Blocks Pillard

Georgetown University Law Center professor Cornelia “Nina” Pillard’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was defeated by a U.S. Senate Republican filibuster Tuesday.
With the Senate’s near party-line vote of 56-41, Pillard was four votes short of the 60 needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. Only two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), voted in favor of Pillard’s confirmation.
Pillard, a graduate of Yale College and Harvard University Law School, is President Obama’s third nominee to the D.C. Circuit to have been blocked by Republicans this year. She joins Caitlin Halligan, general counsel for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, and Patricia Millett, an Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld partner, in being unable to sway enough GOP senators to cross party lines.
“It’s not about Pillard,” Law Center Dean William Treanor said. “The opposition to giving her a vote is Republican senators who are saying that the D.C. Circuit doesn’t need to have its vacancies filled.”
According to the Court’s official website, those three positions have been vacant since Sept. 25, 2005, Oct. 14, 2011 and Feb. 12, 2013, respectively.
Georgetown University College Republicans Communications Manager Tim Rosenberger (COL ’16) said that he saw this trend as an indication that Obama needed to select more qualified nominees.
“We’re perhaps asking the wrong question, asking why Republicans are blocking the nominations,” Rosenberger said. “We should be asking why there aren’t any acceptable nominees being nominated.”
In particular, Pillard’s pro-choice views and objections to abstinence-only education raised concerns from conservatives.
Moreover, the D.C. Circuit, which currently has eight active circuit judges and three vacancies, is split evenly along party lines with four Republican-appointed and four Democrat-appointed judges. Pillard’s confirmation would skew that balance.
Senate Republicans have argued that, given its caseload, the D.C. Circuit simply has no need for additional justices and that the three vacant spots should be eliminated. Senate Democrats, however, have countered by reminding Republicans that they were not opposed to filling vacancies in the D.C. Circuit during the Bush administration.
“It is deeply disappointing that Republicans are continuing to play political games with all of the president’s nominations,” Georgetown University College Democrats President Trevor Tezel (SFS ’15) said.
Before coming to Georgetown, Pillard worked for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and served as deputy assistant attorney general during the Clinton administration. She has briefed more than 25 Supreme Court cases and has argued nine before the Court.
Treanor stood by Pillard’s qualifications.
“The candidates that the president has nominated should be voted on based on their merits,” Treanor said.
Senate Democrats have criticized the GOP for blocking Obama’s three female nominees to the Court in the last year; the fourth nominee, a male, still awaits a Senate vote. Of the 14 active judges currently serving on the D.C. Circuit, which includes circuit and senior judges, 11 are male.
“You cannot say that one president can have his way on qualified judges and another president can’t have his way – that you can have qualified men but not qualified women,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) (LAW ’64) said to Republicans in his final pre-vote floor speech.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, countered accusations of sexism during floor speech Tuesday.
“That argument is offensive but predictable. We’ve seen this before,” Grassley said. “When the other side runs out of legitimate arguments, their last line of defense is to accuse Republicans of opposing nominees based on gender or race.”
Despite Tuesday’s vote, members of Hoya Lawyers for Nina Pillard, a group of Georgetown Law students in favor of Pillard’s nomination, remain optimistic.
According to member Bradley Girard (LAW ’14), the group has been in contact with the offices of Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) (SFS ’66, LAW ’69), Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) (LAW ’78) and Leahy in an attempt to bring Pillard’s nomination vote back to the Senate floor.
Girard said that he is hopeful that if the Senate were to have another vote, it would focus on Pillard’s merit, rather than on party politics.
“We know that she is incredibly qualified, that she would be a phenomenal judge and she would apply the law in a fair, even-handed way,” Girard said. “What we want is for there to be a chance for the Senate to vote on that.”

 

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