Thursday, July 21, 2011

Chief Judge starts letter writing campaign for Kathy Williams and Bob Scola

Congrats to Bob Scola, who received a unanimous voice vote today getting out of the judiciary committee.

Now, Chief Judge Moreno has written letters to Senator Mitch McConnell and Senator Harry Reid urging confirmation by the full Senate of Kathy Williams and Bob Scola before the August recess. The intro from the letters:


As Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, I urge you to expedite the Senate's confirmation of Kathleen Williams and Robert Scola to the positions of district judges in our district. I understand that the Judiciary Committee has sent both nominations by unanimous voice vote and is awaiting a vote by the full Senate. Ms. Williams, our district's Federal Public Defender, has been awaiting confirmation for the longest period of any present nominee to the district court in the entire country. State Judge Robert Scola's nomination is of a more recent vintage but the litigants are eagerly awaiting his confirmation.

The judgeship Ms. Williams has been nominated to fill has been vacant for two years! At the present time, our district has three vacancies. Unfilled positions in our Court present an undue hardship on the citizens residing in the Southern District of Florida, particularly those with cases pending in the affected division of the Court. Our district is huge and heavily populated. It includes the most populous counties in Florida, Miami-Dade, Broward (where Fort Lauderdale is located) and Palm Beach Counties. The district also includes Monroe, St. Lucie, Highlands, Okeechobee, Martin, and Indian River Counties.

Now it's our turn. Please follow Judge Moreno's lead and send letters now to get Williams and Scola confirmed.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the Chief

Anonymous said...

He is seriously the best. Wow.

South Florida Lawyers said...

Great letter. Go to judicialnominations.org for the sad story of the how poorly Congress has performed on this issue.

Anonymous said...

Apparently white men sail through the process. Some things never change.

Bob Becerra said...

Letter going out today.

Anonymous said...

10:06: Judge Scola is Hispanic. Also, plenty of Bush's white male nominees faced rocky confirmation paths (William Pryor, William Haynes, Terrence Boyle, Peter Keisler, and Michael Wallace, just to name a few). Give your wrist some time to heal from whipping out the race card so quickly.

Fake Fred Moreno said...

Meeester Markus....let sleeping nominees lie.!!!!

Anonymous said...

The circuit judge and district judge confirmation processes couldn't be more different. Rarely, if ever, will one see a dissenting vote for a district judge. Cf. Pryor confirmation (53-45). Pryor's awesome, though.

Anonymous said...

12:43,

It wasn't the race card; it was the gender card. Check the stats about confirmation waits for women vs men.

Anonymous said...

6:11 -- Nice "cf."

Anonymous said...

your Compassionate!
letter writing

Anonymous said...

Scola is Italian not Hispanic