Southwick: Judicial vote is overdue

The Clarion-Ledger Editorial, 9/9/7

If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid believes in that body’s time-honored committee system, he will set an October vote for Jackson lawyer Leslie Southwick’s confirmation to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The nomination of Southwick, 57, had been bottled up in the Democrat-majority Judiciary Committee and likely would have died there had it not been for the statesmanship of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

She broke ranks with her party’s purely partisan stalemating of GOP nominations last month to vote Southwick out of the committee because she believed him qualified.