Divisive partisanship has characterized the federal judgeship appointment process for the last four years, but Democrats are optimistic this trend will die with the coming of the new year.

Going into an election year it would suggest that Congress would get more partisan than less, said Michael Briggs, press secretary for Senator Carol Moseley-Braun D-Ill. However, there are a few indications to suggest they will do their duty this year.

Calls to the offices Republican legislators had not been returned as of Sunday.

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A spokesperson for Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also expressed optimism that the Senate will vote on the nominations, citing the quality of the nominees.

This year the nominations will be voted on most definitely, the spokesperson said. They are good nominees, and there is nothing that can be said is wrong with them, so there is no reason to stall the vote.

In March 1995, SIUC law professor Wenona Whitfield was nominated to an open seat for a federal judgeship in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois by former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon.

Whitfield’s nomination went through the entire process, passing the FBI and the American Bar Association checks. The nomination made it to the Senate where it was held up in the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee without a vote until the nomination expired when the U.S. Senate session recessed in September 1996.

Whitfield’s nomination was not the only one allowed to expire. Several nominations across Illinois and the nation met the same fate.

President Clinton, on July 31, 1997 nominated four persons to fill Illinois vacancies, but the Senate failed to confirm any of those before adjourning on Nov. 14. Nationwide, 36 of Clinton’s 78 court nominees were confirmed in 1997.

The result of the inaction caused a backlog of federal court dockets across the state and the nation.

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Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the United States Supreme Court addressed the problem of vacancies in the federal courts in his year-end report on the federal judiciary. Currently, he said, 82 of the 846 offices in the federal judiciary are vacant. This figures to one out of every 10 offices unfilled. He said these vacancies are contributing to a backlog of cases and undue delays in civil cases.

In a recent column, Braun wrote that the legal system is having difficulty handling a growing docket of federal cases.

She said the inexcusable situation is not the fault of the federal judges, and the finger of blame must be pointed directly at the Senate.

Republicans, for the last three years, have employed unprecedented stalling tactics to block court nominees, Braun said. The sad result is that nationwide, almost one in every 10 judgeships is vacant.