Like a lot of people, I got an email yesterday about a new initiative from the guys who put together the Stop Fake News.org campaign. This time, they’ll working on a consensus candidate for the Supreme Court. I don’t think this work, but it’s worth talking about.
The idea is to “draft” 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Ed Prado to fill the inevitable upcoming Supreme Court vacancy.
Imagine a Supreme Court nominee with a mainstream approach to the law who has earned the respect of both Republicans and Democrats. Imagine a nominee for the Supreme Court of unquestioned stature with decades of judicial experience.
Stop imagining… Meet Judge Ed Prado.Judge Prado would be a Supreme Court nominee who all Americans could be proud of. He is truly a uniter, not a divider.
Ed Prado, a Hispanic American from Texas, has served as a District Attorney, a Public Defender, a State District Judge, a United States Attorney, a Federal District Judge and is currently a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Judge Prado was first nominated to the Federal District Court in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan. In 2003, President George W. Bush nominated him for his current position on the Fifth Circuit and the Senate confirmed him 97-0.
Nominated by Republicans and supported by Democrats, Judge Prado has earned bi-partisan support as an extremely intelligent, moderate, fair-minded jurist in his 20 years on the federal bench.
I don’t disagree with any of this analysis, but I’m not sure the effort to “draft” him is worthwhile.
If Dems speak out and effectively tell the White House, “Here’s a Republican centrist we can live with,” that will almost certainly derail any chance Prado has of even making a short list. If Rehnquist retires, the White House’s first thought won’t be “How can we find a consensus candidate that will generate bi-partisan support?”; it will be, “How can we ram another right-winger down the Senate’s throat?”
Ezra Klein explained this very well yesterday.
[T]he central conceit of the Draft Prado organization is that government works like it’s supposed to, that Bush wants to nominate a well-qualified candidate who attracts support from both sides of the aisle, that the endorsements of senators will matter in the White House’s deliberation process, that up is up and down is down. But it’s not. The Bush administration’s nominations are calculated so as to appease Republican constituencies and split Democratic ones. Since Prado won’t do that, I see little chance that he’ll be nominated. […]
Prado seems well qualified and would surely set off a bomb of relief and comity in the Senate, but that’s just his problem. The Bush administration doesn’t want an easy confirmation, they don’t want their choices to receive bipartisan praise on the Sunday shows. They want to stack the deck then pick a fight, and the only candidates who’ll be nominated are those who fit that strategy.
Quite right. Indeed, the idea behind the “draft” effort is that the White House will respond to outside pressure, specifically that coming from left-of-center activists who want a moderate on the court. As near as I can tell, the Bush gang has never accepted outside suggestions about anything, unless the suggestions came from Big Business or James Dobson. Ignoring the rest of us will come easily. With this in mind, Prado probably has a better chance to get nominated if we all just pretend we’ve never heard of him.
On the other hand, my friend D.M. wrote in with an interesting point.
Judge Prado doesn’t have a prayer (pardon the pun) of getting nominated by Bush under any circumstances. But he could at least serve as a rebuttal to those who say that all the Dems ever do is complain and obstruct without having any constructive alternatives to offer.
That’s true. If (when) Bush nominates a conservative Dems find offensive, the response will be, “Dems wouldn’t be happy unless Bush picks an ACLU member.” The Prado effort helps suggest otherwise.
There are mainstream center-right judges, even some backed by Bush, who are qualified and who will help steer clear of a train wreck on the Senate floor. I’m not optimistic, but it certainly can’t hurt to highlight some of these choices as the fight gets underway.