Senate judiciary panel to hold new hearing for judicial nominee after filibuster threat News
Senate judiciary panel to hold new hearing for judicial nominee after filibuster threat

[JURIST] US Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) [official website], chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee [official website], said Thursday that the committee will hold further hearings on the nomination of White House aide Brett Kavanaugh [White House backgrounder] to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Democrats have called for another hearing on the nomination to determine the extent to which Kavanaugh was involved in setting administration policies on interrogation of detainees and the NSA's domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive] and whether Kavanaugh played a role in the administration's relationship with former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff [JURIST news archive], who has been convicted on corruption charges. Specter scheduled the hearing for next Tuesday, with a committee vote on the nomination to follow Thursday.

President Bush nominated Kavanaugh to serve on the federal appeals court in 2003, but the nomination has stalled over Democrats' concerns about his role in setting White House policy. Earlier this week, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) [official website] said that he was considering a filibuster of Kavanaugh's nomination [JURIST report] and a second controversial nomination which would appoint Judge Terrence Boyle [US DOJ backgrounder] to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) [official website] has said he wants a full Senate vote on the Kavanaugh nomination before Memorial Day. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.