The Miguel Estrada story

Miguel Estrada was born and raised in Honduras. At the age of five, he would stand by a window of a school near his home and shout out answers to the first grade teacher's questions until she finally enrolled him. He later won the national science fair for creating a homemade seismograph, which measures earthquakes.

A child of divorce, Miguel emigrated to the United States at the age of 17, where his mother then lived. At the time, he spoke only a little English. But Miguel worked hard, and eventually was accepted to Columbia, an Ivy-League university. At Columbia, he compiled a stellar academic record that led him to Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude and served as editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Throughout his life, Miguel has had a serious speech impediment that he still struggles to overcome. As an attorney, he was so concerned that his speech problem would distract from the legal case he was presenting that, before he was scheduled to appear in court, he would painstakingly write out answers to every conceivable question he might be asked about a case. He then practiced and memorized dozens of possible answers, so that when he spoke the next day, his speech impediment would go unnoticed.

This sort of discipline and commitment helps explain the astonishingly successful start to Miguel's career, one that should make him a role model for many Americans.

By the age of 41, he had already served as Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States, an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and as a partner at one of the nation's most prestigious law firms.

Two years ago, President Bush nominated Miguel Estrada for a judgeship on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the first Latino to serve on what is generally considered the second-highest court in the nation.

His selection won praise and support from the nation's largest Hispanic civil-rights organization as well as from Democrats and Republicans who he worked with in the Clinton and Bush administrations.

It is here in the Senate where Miguel's story takes a nasty turn. Senate Democrats have frustrated his nomination at every opportunity. Patrick Leahy, the now former Judiciary Chairman, denied him the simple courtesy of a committee hearing for more than a year. And today many Democrats are vowing to take the unprecedented action of filibustering a circuit court nomination on the Senate floor to prevent a majority from voting to confirm him.

This approach has been demanded by liberal special-interest groups, such as People for the American Way. This shameful obstruction of a promising young lawyer marks another stage in the increasingly bitter, partisan battle over the once routine confirmation of federal judges.

Democrats don't oppose Miguel Estrada because he is unqualified - the American Bar Association, their so-called "gold standard," unanimously gave him its highest rating.

And they don't oppose him because he can't be impartial. Miguel is a very independent thinker and confident enough to come to his own conclusions; he won't just follow a party line. Those aren't my words. They are Ron Klain's, the former legal counsel to Vice President Al Gore. And they are echoed by other Democrats who have worked with Miguel.

In fact, the Democrats' strongest public criticism, in the words of the Washington Post, "fails to make a plausible case." They argue that Miguel should not be confirmed because of a refusal to release confidential memoranda that he wrote while he served in the Solicitor-General's

office.

Every single living Solicitor General – Democrat and Republican - has publicly stated that compliance with this demand would have a debilitating effect on the ability of the Department of Justice to represent the United States before the Supreme Court and get straightforward, unvarnished advice from counsel.

What's really going on? The only plausible answer is that Democrats simply do not want to confirm a well-qualified, well-respected attorney who happens to hold conservative views. That's just not good enough to justify keeping a well-qualified candidate from an up or down Senate vote.

Conservative Presidents can appoint conservative judges, just as liberal Presidents can appoint liberals.

As the Washington Post, no mouthpiece for Republicans, editorialized on Wednesday: "(Democrats) are contemplating a dramatic escalation of the judicial nomination wars. They should stand down. Mr. Estrada, who is well qualified for the bench, should not be a tough case for confirmation. Democrats who disagree may vote against him. They should not deny him a vote."

Miguel Estrada should be confirmed to the federal bench. His American success story deserves a happy ending.