Griffith nomination faces minimal opposition

June 14, 2005

I know I’m just tilting at windmills here, but I continue to be somewhat amazed that Thomas Griffith’s judicial nomination was not a bigger deal. Today, he was confirmed rather easily.

The Senate on Tuesday confirmed one of its former lawyers, Thomas S. Griffith, to sit on the U.S. Appeals Court, the sixth judge it has elevated to the federal appellate court in the last month.

With a 73-24 vote, Griffith becomes the newest judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia, taking a seat that the Bush administration originally wanted for filibustered Hispanic lawyer Miguel Estrada.

Estrada dropped out in September 2003 after being blocked by Democrats and President Bush replaced him in June 2004 with Griffith, who was the chamber’s general counsel during President Clinton’s impeachment before joining Brigham Young University as general counsel in 2003.

Let’s not lose sight of some of the details here. Griffith practiced law without a license in Utah for nearly five years, lost his D.C. law license, and passed up 10 opportunities to take the Utah bar exam. (Practicing law without a license is illegal.) Better yet, the American Bar Association gave Griffith the lowest possible passing grade for a judicial nominee. Just last fall, Pat Leahy saw this nomination going nowhere.

“This is a man who practiced law in two states in violation of the laws — what a fine, fine standard the White House has” for judicial nominees, Leahy said. “In my state he would be prosecuted. I’ve never seen anything so unbelievable.”

Yet, here we are, less than a year later, and Griffith has taken his lifetime seat on the second highest court in the judiciary. What’s more, the vote wasn’t even close.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of Democrats we elect to Congress. I already know what kind of Republicans get elected to Congress.

  • Better yet, the American Bar Association gave Griffith the lowest possible passing grade for a judicial nominee. Just last fall,

    Am I the only one that thinks this is astonishing? The ABA gave a passing grade to a person who practiced law without a license for 5 years?! how does the ABA justify this? Can any lawyers (presumbaly practicing law with licenses) shed some light on this, please?

  • This may explain why Howard Dean has so much support in the hinterland. The Beltway crowd, while admittedly dealing with a very difficult situation, basically blinked at the moment in history when a little more backbone might have provoked a real solution to the problem of one-party rule, painful and chaotic as it may have been for a while.

    Now we’ve got nothing except a compliant opposition in the Senate who can seem to do nothing more than say, “We can filibuster if we want to!”, but then never actually do it. Will they be more resistant when the Supreme Court vacancy opens up? Only time will tell.

  • Well, for what it’s worth, I wrote the odeous Senator Feinstein and
    told her that I found her vote for this person impossible to
    understand and to excuse. I will never vote for a Republican, but
    I will never vote for Feinstein again. I will vote for her opponent
    in the primary and if she again wins the Democratic nomination I will
    not vote for a Senator.

  • I know the GOP doesn’t like the court system but I think killing it by killing all the Appeals court is a bit short sighted.

  • I know it’s a fruitless exercise, but sometimes I just can’t help it: imagine a Democratic president appointing a woefully unqualified federal judge. Ridicule from rightwingers, snide comments from journalistic bigwigs, furrowed brows in editorials, hilarity on late-night TV … Strategic parity in selecting, framing and communicating issues is a long, long, long way off. Scattershot, embarrassing comments by the Democratic chairman are not part of the solution.

  • I don’t understand what the democrats gained with this deal of the 14 senators. The democrats have gained nothing. Now we have four more VERY BAD judges ( for life )
    This person Griffith, he practiced law without a license. Isn’t that in itself a BIG problem?
    What democrats voted for this moron? What were they thinking?

  • Cowboy

    All the Reeps voted in favor except Santorum & Specter who for some reason joined Jeffords in not voting.

    Baucus, Biden, Carper, Conrad, Dodd, Dorgan, Durbin, Feinstein, Inouye, Kohl, Levin, Lieberman, Lincoln, the Nelsons, Obama, Pryor, Reid & Schumer all voted in favor. Some of them are red/purple staters who may want to be able to say they aren’t total obstructionists….but many of them are pure blue staters. I didn’t expect them to filibuster but they least they could do is abstain or vote no.

    I don’t know what is more disappointing, that they think there is some political downside to opposing someone so clearly wrong for the job or that they can’t see he is wrong for the job?

  • Baucus (D-MT), Yea
    Biden (D-DE), Yea
    Bingaman (D-NM), Yea
    Carper (D-DE), Yea
    Conrad (D-ND), Yea
    Dodd (D-CT), Yea
    Dorgan (D-ND), Yea
    Durbin (D-IL), Yea
    Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
    Inouye (D-HI), Yea
    Kohl (D-WI), Yea
    Levin (D-MI), Yea
    Lieberman (D-CT), Yea
    Lincoln (D-AR), Yea
    Nelson (D-FL), Yea
    Nelson (D-NE), Yea
    Obama (D-IL), Yea
    Pryor (D-AR), Yea
    Reid (D-NV), Yea
    Schumer (D-NY), Yea

    Many of the names look familiar from the bankruptcy bill

  • Edo,

    Sorry, I just got here – out of town on business. To answer your question, as a lawyer myself I am appalled AND most especially embarrassed that the ABA would give this yokel a passing grade of any kind. I know that many state bar associations have vigorously prosecuted any activities of a legal nature conducted by those without actual law school credentials. When someone has had his/her license suspended — whether for failure to pay bar dues or for active misconduct — that has traditionally been a big deal.

    The ABA is like most other business-oriented organizations, akin to a chamber of commerce, and tends to be much more Republican than, say, the American Trial Lawyers Association, which is much more progressive and Democratic-leaning. The bottom line is that, if memory serves, Griffin had his D.C. license to practice law suspended simply for failure to pay bar dues — a technical violation of the law in D.C. The failure to register and obtain a license in Utah, however — which is NOT automatic; if one wants to practice law in all 50 states, then one typically would have to get 50 separate state licenses (excluding one-time cases) — is much more serious. Such an ongoing and serious violation of the most basic of the requirements to practice law is egregious and tantamount to moral turpitude, the sine qua non ground for permanent disbarment.

    The ABA Committee that gave Griffith a passing grade basically game him a “pass” on his ethical failures. Why should a Bush-supporting group do anything else?

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