Enough Already--Keep This Judge

Senate Republicans will no doubt see President Clinton’s eleventh-hour appointment of Roger L. Gregory to a seat on the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals as a poke in the eye. They should instead see Gregory’s recess appointment as an opportunity to make some amends.

Clinton first nominated Gregory, a respected black lawyer from Virginia, to the 4th Circuit seat last June, after trying for seven years to seat a black jurist on that court. None of the president’s four able nominees, Gregory included, got so much as a hearing in the Senate.

The 4th Circuit, which oversees federal cases from Maryland to South Carolina, has an all-white bench although it has the largest minority population of any circuit. Five long-standing vacancies on the 15-member court have greatly backlogged its cases. Famously conservative, in recent years the 4th Circuit has barred school officials from undertaking even voluntary desegregation efforts.

Clinton had exercised his constitutional authority to nominate, but Southern conservatives, notably Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), blocked the president at every turn.

Late last month, taking advantage of a congressional recess, Clinton became the first president in 20 years to fill a judicial vacancy through a recess appointment. Unless the Senate confirms Gregory to the permanent seat to which Clinton is renominating him, the judge will serve only a year.

While recess appointments are hardly the best way to fill federal judgeships, the Senate’s record of stalling decent nominees is so deplorable that Clinton was justified in acting. Now the Senate needs to demonstrate it truly has turned over a new, bipartisan leaf by confirming Gregory to a permanent seat.