Contact: Keith Appell or Hugh Norton, 703-683-5004

Senators Must "Step Up And Vote" On Judges

September 13, 2006

Gary A. Marx, executive director of the Judicial Confirmation Network (www.judicialnetwork.com), today said that U.S. Senators must "do the job their home state citizens elected them to do, and that all of us are paying them to do: step up and vote" on the President Bush's nominees to the federal bench.

"This is important for Senators on the Judiciary Committee," Marx said, "as the Committee meets tomorrow to vote on four judicial nominees that President Bush re-nominated after Senators left them on the table last time around: Boyle, Haynes, Myers, and Smith. It's also important for all 100 Senators to give these nominees votes on the Senate floor. "

Marx stressed that "the issue of judges has proven to be enormously important to Americans across the country one that they certainly remember when they perform their own civic duty in voting. The President has been steadfast in putting forth top quality judges with stellar credentials who will exercise restraint and apply the law fairly and evenhandedly, instead of the kind of liberal judicial activists the Democrats want to fill the federal bench. Just think what the Supreme Court would look like right now if, instead of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, these seats had been filled by the likes of Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton."

"The four judicial nominees who will be before the Judiciary Committee on Thursday morning have outstanding records of public service and legal credentials. But Democrats and their ACLU activist cronies will stop at nothing to distort and politicize the records of the nominees and the judicial nominations issue in general. For example, they are attacking the President's 4th Circuit nominee, Jim Haynes, because he has served our nation as the general counsel of the Defense Department during the war on terror. In fact, when Americans reflect on it, they will appreciate that one reason we have been kept safe from further terrorist attack since September 11, 2001 is because Jim Haynes has done his job well as the Pentagon's lawyer. This stands in stark contrast to liberal activist judges who disregard the law as written in order to impose the preferred policies of the ACLU and liberal special interest groups."