A Political Process

From the White House to Capitol Hill went the nominations of two first-rate Missouri lawyers--Floyd R. Gibson of Kansas City, and William H. Becker of Columbia--for a pair of vacant district judgeships in the western half of the state. Since both men have earned the approval of the American Bar Association--and, more importantly, the political backing of Democratic Senators Stuart Symington and Edward Long--the Senate was expected to pass quickly and approvingly on the appointments. Thus one of the most important domestic problems confronting the New Frontier last week moved a small step closer to solution.

No U.S. Chief Executive has ever had more judicial posts to fill at one time than Non-Lawyer John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Deaths, vacancies and recess appointments that required resubmission to the Senate gave him 33 jobs to fill for a start. Last May the Democratic Congress, having delayed for more than a year with partisan forethought, passed a bill providing for 73 desperately needed new District and Appellate Court judgeships. In all, Kennedy now has the power to appoint more than one-fourth of the federal bench. Since judges are appointed for life, John Kennedy's choices will have a powerful effect on the administration of U.S. law for decades to come.

Slow Pace. By last week the President had sent 29 judicial nominations to the Senate (18 of them have been approved) and reached "final conclusions" on 40 other nominations still to be announced. Around case-clogged U.S. courts (in a nation operating upon the principle that justice delayed is justice denied, there are 6,200 untried cases that have been pending for at least three years), plenty of understandable complaints can be heard about the slow pace of the appointments. But the Administration, faced with a personnel problem that the American Bar Association has declared "staggering and completely unprecedented," intends to proceed with caution. "These judges are in for life," says Attorney General Robert Kennedy, "and we want to choose good ones. You never know, of course, how good a judge will be until he is on the bench. Maybe the 106 won't all be good--that's too much to hope for--but they'll be the best we can get."

Discovering the best is the job of Bobby Kennedy and his deputy, Colorado's ex-All America Halfback Byron ("Whizzer") White. From Senators, Congressmen, judges, lawyers and party wheel horses, the Justice Department has so far received more than 1,300 nominations for the vacant judgeships. Some of the names were easily scratched off the list: a handful of Democratic bigwigs--including California's Governor Pat Brown--foolishly suggested their brothers and cousins. (One politician, whose relative was summarily turned down, taunted Kennedy with the comment: "Your brother got you your job." Bobby's answer: "Yeah, but he doesn't have me for life.") Other suggested names received respectful consideration. The Justice Department has asked the American Bar Association for reports on 250 candidates; the Federal Bureau of Investigation is currently at work on full field checks of 21 prospective judges.

New Message. Justice's toughest hurdle is the Senate. Until Harry Truman set up procedures in 1952 to examine the qualifications of nominees, Senators were accustomed to naming friends for bench vacancies and getting near-automatic presidential approval. Some Senate veterans have still to hear the new message, and, more than any other factor, senatorial balkiness has held up the flow of nominations. In Texas, Senator Ralph Yarborough and Vice President Lyndon Johnson quarrel now over every available patronage plum; Justice hopes to resolve a potentially bitter fight by selecting Yarborough-approved candidates for two unfilled posts in Texas' southern and western districts, Johnson men for two available judgeships in the northern district. Another troublesome appointment is a new district judgeship in eastern Colorado. Democratic Senator John Carroll has bridled at the personal favorite of Whizzer White, and made his dissatisfaction known by suggesting no fewer than 21 alternative choices.

So far, only one presidential nomination seems doomed to defeat. Kennedy resubmitted the name of John Feikens for the district judgeship in eastern Michigan, where he has an excellent record as an Eisenhower interim appointee. The renomination thoroughly rankled Michipan Democrat Pat McNamara. whom Feikens. a former G.O.P. state chairman, had accused of accepting unlawful union campaign funds in the 1954 senatorial election. Since McNamara will never approve Feikens--and the Senate will go along if he declares the judge "personally obnoxious"--the nomination will be left to expire and a new name submitted at the next congressional session.

Improved Box Score. Inevitably, most of John Kennedy's new judges will be deserving Democrats. The Administration, for obvious political reasons, turned down an A.B.A. appeal to preserve the bipartisan status quo of the present bench division (157 Democrats. 159 Republicans). The trend toward bench Democracy has already caused some agitation. Boston legal circles complain that the Attorney General has been toying with the nomination of Municipal Judge Francis Morrissey to a new Massachusetts district judgeship. A gladhanding Democratic politician, Morrissey has had little trial experience as a lawyer, but he is a longtime friend of Joe Kennedy's and a former campaign aide of the President's. Anyhow. Justice officials insist that they will improve at least slightly on the box score of Dwight Eisenhower, who made 189 judicial appointments--only eleven of them Democrats. Likely spots for G.O.P. district judges: Kansas, Iowa and New York, which each have two Republican Senators.

Despite the party coloration of its choices, the Administration insists that political factors will not get in the way of selecting good men for vital jobs. "It is a political process by which judges are selected," explains Whizzer White. "The President nominates them. The Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearings on them. The Senate confirms them. But this is a political process in the broad sense, not in any odious sense. This is our system of government."

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