CITING URGENT PROBLEMS, BIPARTISAN COMMISSION OFFERS RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE PROCESS OF APPOINTING FEDERAL JUDGES WASHINGTON, D.C., May 15 -- A national bipartisan commission today made a number of far-reaching recommendations aimed at lessening the role of politics in and streamlining the increasingly prolonged process of appointing federal judges. The commission, co-chaired by former Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach and former Deputy Attorney General Harold R. Tyler Jr. and sponsored by the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs, was established in 1994 to respond to a growing crisis in the federal court system caused by lengthy delays in filling judgeships. Among its key recommendations: The White House should consider reducing the number of personal interviews with judgeship candidates; the Senate Judiciary Committee should eliminate holding confirmation hearings on noncontroversial district court candidates; and judgeship nominees should be required to complete only a single personal questionnaire rather than one from each of the several agencies now involved. Although the Clinton administration appointed a larger number of federal judges in its first two years in office than did preceding administrations, the federal judicial system continues to be plagued by significant numbers of vacancies, delays and backlogs, the commission said. Furthermore, "the increasingly ideological nature of political campaigns, the need for huge sums of money, the growth of dependence on contributions from various ideological groups, and the willingness of those groups to launch personal attacks on candidates they ideologically oppose, has the potential to affect the appointment process in unfortunate ways." In its report released today at a Washington, D.C., news conference, the Miller Center Commission on the Selection of Federal Judges said the selection process requires "urgent attention" for three related reasons: the size of the federal judiciary is increasing to keep up with a growing caseload and growing number of types of federal crimes; the percentage of judgeship vacancies and duration of vacancies is growing and creating serious problems for court workloads; and the process of federal judicial appointment has become increasingly complex and bureaucratized and involves an increasing number of people. Among the commission's recommendations to speed up the selection process as well as enhance the quality of judicial appointments: ¥ Senators, in their "advise and consent" role, should identify good judgeship candidates before a vacancy occurs and the candidates should be thoroughly appraised and "vetted" either before the vacancy occurs or within 30 days after it. ¥ Senators should recommend two or more names to the President, in order of priority, for each vacancy to avoid delays in case a potential nominee becomes unavailable. In no case should a senator's recommendation go to the executive branch later than 90 days after a vacancy occurs. ¥ If a senator doesn't respond to the request for more than one name, the administration should notify the senator of additional names the administration would like to consider. The executive branch too should maintain lists of prospective judicial nominees. ¥ If senators haven't made recommendations within 90 days of a district court vacancy, the President should proceed with the administration's own nominee, and if confirmation is delayed, make a temporary, or "recess," appointment. (The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld the constitutionality of doing that.) ¥ The White House, Department of Justice, FBI and American Bar Association all should complete their investigations of candidates within 90 days of a vacancy. ¥ The ABA should have more than one representative from each court circuit on its Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary and should provide a brief explanation for its rating, to avoid charges that it sometimes takes political considerations into account. ¥ The White House and Justice Department should review their current procedures to simplify them and avoid duplication and should consider eliminating personal interviews with candidates, to avoid the appearance of trying to influence candidates' judicial views. Expediting the Senate Confirmation Process ¥ The Senate Judiciary Committee should increase the number of its staff attorneys investigating judicial nominees. ¥ If a nominee is noncontroversial, the Senate Judiciary Committee should forgo holding confirmation hearings. ¥ The committee should clear nominees for full Senate confirmation within two months of receipt of a President's nomination. Eliminating Paperwork and Redundancies ¥ Prospective nominees should be required to complete only a single questionnaire that supplies all the information sought by the Department of Justice, White House, ABA and Senate Judiciary Committee. ¥ Those agencies should explore whether it is really necessary or appropriate to obtain all the information presently sought. Timely Notice of Vacancies ¥ Congress should enact a statute providing that an additional judgeship is created on the date an incumbent becomes eligible for senior status (semi-retirement) even if the incumbent doesn't take senior status on that date. The number of authorized judgeships would be reduced by one when the incumbent takes senior status, fully retires or dies. "It is our view that the important process of appointing federal judges need not be as difficult as it now seems," the commission's report said. "The ultimate question is simply whether or not potential candidates have the qualities of integrity, good judgement and experience to become judicial officers of the United States. Occasional mistakes will be made. But no amount of bureaucratic vetting or testing for ideology will achieve perfection, and too complex a process can do more harm than good." The commission conducted interviews with all of the participants in the process of judicial selection, including representatives from the White House, the Justice Department, FBI, American Bar Association and Senate Judiciary Committee. The commission also invited and received suggestions from federal judges throughout the country. Members of the commission, in addition to co-chairs Katzenbach (attorney general in the Johnson administration) and Tyler (deputy attorney general in the Ford administration and former U.S. District Judge), are: former Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.); former Sen. Birch Bayh (D-Ind.); Lovida H. Coleman Jr., a Washington, D.C., lawyer; former White House counsel Lloyd N. Cutler (Carter and Clinton administrations); former White House counsel Fred F. Fielding (Reagan administration); Leon A. Higginbotham Jr., former U.S. District Judge in Pennsylvania and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Philadelphia; Frederick B. Lacey, former U.S. District Judge in New Jersey; Daniel J.Meador, the James Monroe Professor of Law Emeritus at U.Va. and former chair of the ABA's Standing Committee on Federal Judicial Improvements; and Kimba Wood, U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York. Miller Center director Kenneth W. Thompson is coordinator and contact for the project. This is the seventh Miller Center commission seeking to address urgent problems of public affairs. ### May 13, 1996 For additional information please contact Kenneth Thompson at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at (804) 924-7236 or Bob Brickhouse at University of Virginia News Services at (804) 924-7116. Television reporters should contact our TV News Office at (804)Ê924-7550.