Word: judgeships
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...fill the federal bench. Presidents appoint federal judges, but since Senators can blackball any candidate from their home state, they have the real power of appointment. Sheer embarrassment is about the only check. When Senator Ted Kennedy tried to nominate Family Retainer Francis X. Morrissey for a federal judgeship in 1965, other lawyers began joking that Morrissey was boning up for the job by reading the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the rough equivalent of preparing for surgery by looking at Gray's Anatomy. Kennedy eventually withdrew Morrissey's name...
Other potential candidates see a federal judgeship less as a prestigious and challenging job than as very hard work for low pay. Senator Charles Percy has privately remarked that he has had to offer, the job to ten people just to get one. Says U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Edward Allen Tamm: "Federal judges are working harder than they ever did in private practice, but they never get their heads above water." Worn down by the work load, comparing their salaries ($54,500 to $57,500) with the six-figure incomes of really successful lawyers, a discouraging number of federal...
...state legislature in the Eisenhower landslide. Redistricted out of his seat in 1954, he decided to go to law school and become a criminal defense lawyer. All the while, he stayed active in Democratic ward politics, and his loyalty was rewarded when he was backed for a judgeship by Congressman Raymond F. Lederer, whom White describes as "a close personal friend...
...federal appeals judges should be nominated by merit commissions. Eastland also promised that his committee would go along with the President's choices. But he balked when it came to the more numerous federal district judges. Instead of a Mississippi commission coming up with five names for a judgeship and the President choosing one, Eastland reportedly told Attorney General Griffin Bell: "I'll hand you a slip of paper with one name on it, and that'll be the judge...
Carter was left trying to persuade individual Senators to set up merit commissions. So far, Senators in 18 states have agreed. The Omnibus Judgeship Act empowers the Administration to establish "standards and guidelines" for choosing federal district judges. But as Attorney General Bell cautions, "They're not mandatory. It's more of a friendly persuasion operation...