GOP/JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/NOMINATIONS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The American Bar Association has been a key gatekeeper for the federal courts since it began evaluating judicial nominees in the 1940s, but it is losing influence among Republicans in the U.S. Senate who view it as a liberal group.
Tensions between Senate Republicans and the association, the largest organization of lawyers in the nation, have escalated in recent weeks after the ABA pronounced a Nebraska lawyer unfit to serve on the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, citing his ‘deeply-held social agenda.’…
Pamela Bresnahan, chairwoman of the ABA committee that examines federal judicial candidates, is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Republican senators are expected to interrogate her on the association’s treatment of Steve Grasz, the Eighth Circuit nominee.”
-Joe Palazzolo, “GOP and Bar Association Tangle Over Judicial Nominees,” The Wall Street Journal online, Nov. 14, 2017 07:49pm