Senators eager for judge vote

WASHINGTON - Just before the political conventions, Senate Republicans on Monday pushed forward one of President Bush's court nominees to remind voters that Democrats have blocked some of the White House's most-desired judicial nominees.

The Senate will vote Tuesday on William Myers' nomination to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, but Republicans are not expected to get the 60 votes needed to get past Democrats' objections.

"Some senators apparently believe that nominees who do not think like they do, and will not advocate their pet causes while on the bench, deserve nothing more than to be filibustered," Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Monday.

But Republicans aren't the only ones hoping to get a boost from Myers' nomination. Democrats say a vote on Myers gives them an opportunity to publicize how bad the Bush administration has been for the environment and the federal judicial system.

"This nomination brings the environment to the front burner as the Senate ends this summer session," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Judiciary Committee's top Democrat. "William Myers epitomizes the antienvironmental tilt of so many Bush nominees."

If Myers is blocked Tuesday, he would be the seventh of Bush's appeals court nominees to be halted by Democrats on the Senate floor, a figure Republicans and Democrats are sure to tout at their political conventions.

"The public hasn't really heard much about judicial nominations since November" when Republicans staged an all-night debate on Bush's blocked nominees, said Sean Rushton of the Committee for Justice, a conservative group set up to help Bush get his nominees on the courts.

"We think it is a very, very important issue after the two most obvious issues (war and the economy), and it does resonate," Rushton said.

Liberals complain about Myers' opposition to environmental protections when he was Interior Department solicitor, 2001-03, and his work as a private lawyer and lobbyist for cattle and mining interests.

Senators also may vote on another nomination likely to be contested: Henry Saad, who was tapped for the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

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