WASHINGTON — President Bush intends to renominate to federal judgeships 20 candidates who failed to win Senate approval during his first term, the White House said Thursday.
The announcement, coming before the new Congress convenes next month, drew jeers from Democrats and cheers from Republicans eager to flex their muscles following gains in November.
The statement issued by White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan decried the Senate's failure to act on the "highly qualified individuals" Bush had nominated during his first term and contended that inaction had exacerbated a backlog of cases in the federal courts.
Bush "looks forward to working with the new Senate to ensure a well-functioning and independent judiciary," the statement said.
The nominees, who will officially be put forward once the Senate is in session, include some of the president's most contentious choices for the federal courts, including several ardently opposed by abortion-rights groups and a Pentagon lawyer linked to a disavowed administration legal memo on torture.
Among them is California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, whose nomination last year to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia -- a traditional steppingstone to the Supreme Court -- ignited debate because of her statements that judges should use their authority to rein in big government.
During the last two years of Bush's first term, Senate Democrats used filibusters to block 10 of the president's 34 appellate court nominees, arguing that they held views that were too extreme.
Propelled by socially conservative voters and a wider Republican majority in the Senate, the president appears ready to use his second term to try to move the federal courts to the right on such issues as religion, abortion, gay rights, the environment and consumer protection. But even Republicans acknowledge that the fates of some of the nominees remain unclear, and that they expect continuing opposition from their colleagues across the aisle.
And while it is routine for presidents to revive stalled judicial nominations when a new Congress convenes, in this case the number and the backgrounds of the nominees signal a continuation of the partisan wrangling over the composition of the federal bench that has infused Bush's presidency.
Even the incoming Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), expressed reservations about the timing of the White House action.
