The Nation : Judgeship Probes Planned

Senate Democrats will establish an all-Democratic unit on the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate and hold hearings on all of President Reagan’s judicial nominees before the full committee votes on them, the Washington Post reported. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont will head the four-member unit, which will function like a subcommittee with its own budget and four investigators, the newspaper said. The unit will take no formal votes, which under Senate rules would have required that some Republican members be included. The unit is the heart of a Democratic plan to give greater scrutiny to Reagan’s judicial nominees, some of whom became the focus of bitter fights this year.