Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the presumptive chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Monday outlined his leadership plans—including his vow to confirm “consensus” nominations to the federal judiciary. Grassley, currently the committee’s ranking Republican, told his home state papers over the weekend that he intended to chair the Judiciary Committee.
The committee, Grassley said Monday, “should not be a rubber stamp for the president” when it comes to nominations. Grassley said in his statement:
Factors I consider important include intellectual ability, respect for the Constitution, fidelity to the law, personal integrity, appropriate judicial temperament, and professional competence. Judges are to decide cases and controversies—not establish public policy or make law.
Grassley didn’t mention any nonjudicial nominees that will come before his committee, but his Monday remarks reflect his statement over the weekend promising a “very fair, but thorough, vetting by the Judiciary Committee” for U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch’s nomination to be the next attorney general.
Whether Lynch emerges as one such “consensus nominee” may depend on how she answers questions already being posed by other Republicans on the Judiciary Committee.
Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, said on Saturday that Lynch “must demonstrate full and complete commitment to the law … beginning with a statement whether or not she believes the president’s executive amnesty plans are constitutional and legal.”
Grassley will be the first nonlawyer to head the Judiciary Committee. But that should be no impediment for the Iowa farmer, who has sat on the committee since 1986.
Makan Delrahim, a shareholder at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck who served as staff director and chief counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 2000 to 2003, pointed to the intensive legal education any member, lawyer or not, receives by sitting on Judiciary.
Grassley and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., another longtime Judiciary Committee member, “are probably the best two lawyers who never went to law school I’ve ever seen,” Delrahim said.
Grassley’s statement on Monday didn’t provide a detailed agenda. He said the committee will look at legislation that “reduces regulatory burdens on businesses and curbs abuses to our civil justice system”; legislation that “protects taxpayer dollars from waste, fraud and abuse”; and legislation that “adapts our criminal laws to rapidly advancing technology.”
