Bush Appeals Court Nominee Estrada Concedes Defeat After Fillibuster

Miguel A. Estrada, the 1986 Harvard Law School (HLS) graduate whose confirmation to the federal bench was impeded by a Democratic filibuster, conceded defeat last week and withdrew his nomination.

Estrada’s controversial nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia—which is considered second in prestige only to the U.S. Supreme Court—developed into a two-year partisan showdown over the federal confirmation process.

Estrada became the first Appeals Court nominee defeated by filibuster.

While most of President Bush’s judicial appointments have been confirmed easily, Democrats have taken a firm stand on several of the more conservative nominees, alleging that the White House is seeking to pack the bench with right-leaning judges.

In the face of the Democratic victory, Republicans decried Estrada’s failed confirmation, comparing it to the 1987 defeat of Judge Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

Former judge and HLS Beneficial Professor of Law Charles Fried said that Estrada was a victim of the “lowest kind of politics.”

“They didn’t want someone as attractive and able as him. He’s a very, very able man with a very compelling life story,” Fried said. “They had nothing on him, so Democrats came up with a pretext.”

Following his nomination, Democrats labeled Estrada as a “far-right stealth nominee,” and expressed frustration at his unwillingness to articulate his views on contentious political issues.

Because of a scant written record of Estrada’s political views, Senate Democrats demanded access to internal memos Estrada wrote during his tenure in the U.S. Solicitor General’s office.

Republicans countered by arguing that a nominee’s ideology should not matter. Instead Senate Republicans cited Estrada’s superb qualifications and wide bipartisan support, insinuating that Democrats held his Hispanic heritage against him.

But Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that the Republican’s allegations that were beyond the pale.

“The implication that anyone has blocked this because of Mr. Estrada’s background is cheap and low. The Republicans can’t win the argument on the merits so they resort to below-the-belt tactics,” he told the New York Times.

Born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Estrada immigrated to the U.S. with his family as a teenager.

Estrada graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelors degree from Columbia in 1983. He went on to graduate magna cum laude from HLS in 1986, where he edited the Harvard Law Review.

From 1990-1992, he served as assistant U.S. attorney and deputy chief appellate section in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York. In 1992, he joined the U.S. Department of Justice as an assistant to the Solicitor General.

—Staff writer Ella A. Hoffman can be reached at ehoffman@fas.harvard.edu.