I've been looking for these numbers, desiring to shove them back in the face of anyone who claimed that Bush's 95% judicial confirmation rate made him remarkably successful in getting judges confirmed and that any complaints about the unprecedented unconstitutional filibuster of circuit court appointees was nothing but sour grapes. Fortunately, the Washington Times supplied the figures today.

During the first complete two-year Congress of their presidencies, postwar presidents achieved the following confirmation rates for their circuit-court nominees: Truman (80th Congress; 3/3: 100 percent); Eisenhower (83rd; 12/13: 92.3 percent); Kennedy (87th; 17/22: 77.3 percent); Johnson (89th; 25/26: 96.2 percent); Nixon (91st; 20/23: 87 percent); Ford (94th; 9/11: 81.8 percent); Carter (95th: 12/12: 100 percent); Reagan (97th: 19/20; 95 percent); G.H.W. Bush (101st; 22/23: 95.7 percent); Clinton (103rd: 19/22: 86.4 percent); G.W. Bush (107th; 17/32: 53.1 percent).

Thus, for the first complete two-year Congresses of the 10 postwar presidencies preceding George W. Bush's, the circuit-court confirmation rate averaged 91.2 percent. For Mr. Bush, it was 53.1 percent. Moreover, before George W. Bush, no president's confirmation rate during his first complete Congress fell below 77 percent, which is nearly 50 percent (and 24 percentage points) higher than Mr. Bush's confirmation rate. It is also worth noting that the three nominees returned by Mr. Clinton's first Congress were confirmed during his second, effectively raising his first-Congress rate to 100 percent. And if we exclude Mr. Bush's two circuit-court nominees who were appointed to the federal judiciary by Mr. Clinton and nominated for the circuit-court bench by Mr. Bush as an unrequited, magnanimous gesture to the Democrats, then Mr. Bush's first-Congress confirmation rate falls to 50 percent (15/30), which is half Mr. Clinton's first-Congress effective rate.

Let's now aggregate the data for a president's first four-year term, while making minor, necessary adjustments (e.g., folding the 79th Congress into the first term of Truman, who succeeded Roosevelt in April 1945; using 1965-1968 as Johnson's first term; and ignoring Ford, who served less than 2.5 years). Then, the first-term confirmation rates are the following: Truman (10/11: 90.9 percent); Eisenhower (23/26: 88.5 percent); Kennedy/Johnson, 1961-1964 (24/29: 82.8 percent); Johnson, 1965-1968 (37/39: 94.9 percent); Nixon (38/41; 92.7 percent); Carter (56/61: 91.8 percent); Reagan (33/42: 78.6 percent); G.H.W. Bush (42/54: 77.8 percent); Clinton (30/42: 71.4 percent); G.W. Bush (35/66: 53 percent).

Thus, since World War II, for the nine four-year, first-term presidencies that preceded George W. Bush's, the circuit-court confirmation rate averaged 85.5 percent. For Mr. Bush's first term, the rate was a relatively dismal 53 percent.

Finally, throughout the same nine postwar, first-term, four-year presidencies that preceded George W. Bush's, Congress returned a total of 46 circuit-court nominations to the president upon adjournment. Those 46 averaged five per four-year term over 36 years. During Mr. Bush's first four-year term, 30 circuit-court nominations were returned by Congress.

So, Democrats and other liberals -- stop the lying.

(Hat Tip -- Blogs For Bush)

Posted by: Greg at 03:04 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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