President Donald Trump has nominated over 50 candidates to fill judicial vacancies, some of whom have been considered “not qualified”. Due to the swiftness of the process, the president skipped the screening process which was common practice for most presidents before him, leading to two of the nominees to be rated as unqualified.
The American Bar Association, which does the screening before candidates are nominated, did otherwise under Trump, evaluating two out of the 51 candidates as inappropriate for the post. The association has so far rated 1,800 nominees but has only unanimously rated two as “not qualified”, while two others were rated similarly by a majority. In the course of 27 years, from 1989 to 2016, only 0.7 percent have received this rating, while 8 percent of Trump’s nominees were deemed “not qualified”.
The issue lies with the fact that though other presidents have had their candidates rated as “not qualified”, they learned of it before nominating them, while all of President Trump’s candidates were screened only after they were publicly nominated. The ABA said that in evaluating a candidate it “focuses strictly on professional qualifications: integrity, professional competence and judicial temperament,” and not on his or her philosophy or political affiliation in order to evaluate objectively the professional qualifications of the candidates.
Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein called the discrepancy in the number of Trump’s “not qualified” candidates compared to previous presidents “very worrisome.”
“In less than a year we’ve seen two Trump nominees receive a unanimous ABA ‘not qualified,’ compared to just two from 1989 to 2016 — 27 years. This calls into question the quality of individuals being nominated,” she said.
Feinstein also added that she was concerned about Senate scheduling hearings prior to ABA reviews completion, arguing that “Republicans want to remake our courts by jamming through President Trump’s nominees as quickly as possible.” Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned the importance of these evaluations, stating that nominees who had previously been rated “not qualified” are now serving on the federal bench.
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