Statute of Frogs

Whatever you think about the judicial qualification work of the ABA Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary (and it’s clear there are some people who really don’t like it), it’s apparently been 25 years since the committee unanimously voted to rate a nominee unqualified.  But they did it yesterday with Michael Wallace, a nominee for a seat on the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.  Since the committee doesn’t generally issue reasons for its ratings, it’s not clear why they found Wallace unqualified (though we can expect that they will be asked to issue a statement for the hearings if the nomination gets that far).  As much as people may complain that the ABA can’t in good faith claim to be non-partisan, a unanimous vote that hasn’t happened for 25 years ought to at least give some pause.  I would think the Administration has bigger (or at least more appetizing) fish to fry without spending political capital trying to push this through.  On the other hand, they don’t have a great track record of putting their mistakes behind them.  Maybe Wallace will take one for the team a la Harriet Miers and remove his name from consideration.