Harsh Gupta
What Policy Issue Are You Most Following While In Washington?
By Harsh Gupta
Fall 2014
When it comes to the federal court system, outside observers, such as the media – and the public in general – tend to view the courts as fair, independent arbiters of justice, uninfluenced by the political partisanship that plagues Congress. Most individuals who are indifferent about the judiciary tend to assume that the courts are separate from the rest of government or that judges come to occupy their benches in a manner unadulterated by ideology. But the more I become acquainted with the judicial confirmation process, the more it seems the system of checks and balances tips away from this view.
My focus throughout this semester – and an issue I have adopted through my exposure to it – has been the matter of judicial vacancies. One of my roles as the intern at the Legal Progress department of Center for American Progress (CAP) revolves around understanding and raising awareness to the issues involving the judicial nomination process and the current state of emergent judicial vacancies.
It is clear the systematically arduous route from Presidential nomination to Senate confirmation leaves judges open to political attacks, filibusters, and other forms of obstruction. The longstanding political parlor game of stalling opposing federal court judge nominations has recently taken a turn for the worse, with whole-scale opposition at the party level. The partisan battles to confirm judges means that outstanding nominees are unwilling to put their lives on hold for more than a year, and sitting judges are unable to retire. Thus, the other two branches have the chance to bend the long arc of the moral universe away from justice and toward partisan politics.
Given the increasingly partisan state of Congress, it is unlikely that all of the pending nominees will be confirmed, rejected, or even considered by start of the next year. Regardless of the deadlock, this apolitical issue has essentially politicized the judiciary and captured my attention during my fall semester in Washington.
Harsh is a junior Political Science major interning at the Center for American Progress.
