Another shot at bench

Controversial judicial nominee Thomas B. Griffith will get another chance at being named to what's considered the second-highest court in the land, President Bush has announced.

In a statement released Thursday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush intends to renominate 20 judges who failed to win Senate approval during his first term, including Griffith, now the general counsel at Brigham Young University.

Griffith was nominated by the president in May to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, but ran into trouble because he allowed his membership in the D.C. Bar Association to lapse. He also did not have a license to practice law in Utah.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Griffith's nomination in November. The committee's outgoing chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, tried but failed to get the nomination through before Congress adjourned.

Griffith wasn't the only Bush nominee who did not receive an up or down vote from the Senate. Democrats, who are in the minority in the Senate, used filibusters to block final votes on 10 of 34 of Bush's nominees to federal appeals courts.

McClellan said the president had "nominated highly qualified individuals" and the Senate's failure to take action "only exacerbates the issue of judicial vacancies, compounds the backlog of cases, and delays timely justice for the American people."

But Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement that the president's decision is a "disservice" to the public and only the "most extreme" judicial candidates have been blocked.

"I was extremely disappointed to learn today that the president intends to begin the new Congress by resubmitting extremist judicial nominees," Reid said. "Last Congress, Senate Democrats worked with the president to approve 204 judicial nominees, rejecting only 10 of the most extreme."

Griffith said during his Senate confirmation hearing that he has "never engaged in the unlawful practice of law." He said he relied on the law firm he was working for at the time to take care of his bar dues.

"I bear responsibility," Griffith told the committee. "I relied on others and I shouldn't have." He also said he did not join the Utah bar because he had attorneys on staff at BYU to handle court filings and appearances.

When Griffith discovered he owed back dues to the Washington, D.C., bar association, he paid them without penalty. He joined a private law firm in the nation's capital after serving as legal counsel to the U.S. Senate.

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Contributing: Associated Press

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