Senate Should Approve Caitlin Halligan for D.C. Circuit The D.C. Circuit now officially has four vacancies out of 11 seats, as a result of another judge taking senior status this week. Imagine the U.S. Senate with 36 empty seats, which would be the equivalent. We can be quite confident that the Senate would address the problem expeditiously. According to People for the American Way, the average caseload of each judge on that court has gone up 50 percent, from 121 cases for each judge in 2005 to 188 cases, while the Senate has defaulted on its constitutional duty to fill vacant seats. At a morning meeting today, the first order of business for the Senate Judiciary Committee is to vote on the longstanding nomination of Caitlin Halligan who President Obama first asked the Senate to confirm for a seat on the D.C. Circuit almost two and a half years ago and has had to re-nominate three times. If senators were required to state their reasons for opposition, she would likely be approved with a substantial majority because there is no good reason to vote against her. Ms. Halligan is an excellent choice. She was a widely admired solicitor general of New York State, the successful leader of an appellate practice at a respected New York City corporate firm, and is both strongly credentialed and experienced. A letter on her behalf from a bipartisan group of appellate lawyers noted her "brilliant legal mind, her collegiality and fair-mindedness, and her abiding respect for the law of law." She has been endorsed by the New York Association of Chiefs of Police, the New York Sheriffs Association, the National District Attorneys Association and the National Conference of Women's Bar Associations. In her hearing before the judiciary committee in February of 2011, conservative senators did their best to get her to commit to conservative views about judicial interpretation of the law, but her straightforward responses should have satisfied anyone who cares about the independence of the courts. Sen. Charles Grassley, the Republican from Iowa, lectured that "judicial nominees need to understand the proper role of a judge and our system of checks and balances. Judges are to decide cases and controversies, not establish public policy or make law. Therefore, I will not be favorably disposed to nominees who might bring a personal agenda or political ideology to the bench. Ms. Halligan said appropriately, "I believe that the role of a judge is a limited, but important one. I think that the job is to apply the law to the facts, to do so in the context of a specific case that is presented to a court. I believe that judges have to have a deep respect for precedent and, also, a full commitment to being fair and impartial with every case that comes before a judge. The N.R.A. scuttled her nomination in December of 2011, as Linda Greenhouse explained, in only the second time that the organization had opposed a nomination below the Supreme Court, because as a lawyer for New York State she represented the state and the governor's views in a lawsuit against gun manufacturers. And that was despite Ms. Halligan's unequivocal statements at her 2011 confirmation hearing about gun rights. Sen. Grassley: "Do you personally agree that the Second Amendment protects individual rights to keep and bear arms?" Ms. Halligan: "The Supreme Court has been clear about that. Yes, it does protect individual rights to bear arms, Senator. The Republicans are out of shameless, enormously time-wasting, basically unpatriotic excuses to sabotage Ms. Halligan's nomination. The Senate Judiciary Committee should approve her nomination this morning and send it to the floor of the Senate for the earliest possible confirmation. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Caitlin Halligan's nomination 10 to eight, on a party-line vote. Now her nomination goes to the floor, and we'll see if Harry Reid is capable of winning an essential cloture vote.