Republicans temporarily blocked Senate committee action on President Barack Obama’s first judicial appointment, attacking the nominee for rulings based on separation of church and state.
Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned the fitness of U.S. District Judge David Hamilton of Indiana to be promoted to a federal appeals court in Chicago.
“Our members are concerned about this nominee,” Sessions said at today’s committee meeting. “He has had a number of troubling rulings dealing with a series of prayers at the Indiana legislature.”
The Democratic-controlled panel, which will have the job of screening Obama’s nominee to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter, postponed a preliminary vote on Hamilton’s nomination.
In 2005, Hamilton ruled that prayers used to open the Indiana State Legislature must be nonsectarian. Sessions also said he is concerned about Hamilton’s decision to ban religious displays in public buildings.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, in agreeing to delay consideration of the nomination, defended the judge’s record. “He is, after all, the son of a minister and he believes very strongly in the constitutional separation of church and state,” the Vermont Democrat said.
“The reason it has taken as much time and there has been as much discussion about it is because he is controversial,” Sessions said after the meeting.
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