| September 22, 2007
By KEN HERMAN
President Bush has had more Hispanics confirmed for federal judgeships than any president in U.S. history, a record that earns him praise from Hispanic organizations but is played down by the Democratic National Committee.
Of the 282 Bush judicial appointees confirmed by the Senate, 27 -- almost 10 percent -- are Hispanic. President Clinton held the previous record, having appointed 23 Hispanics who won confirmation. That's just over 6 percent of his 367 appointees.
With about 16 months remaining in his term, Bush has appointed more than one-fourth of the 95 Hispanics confirmed for the federal bench. The first Hispanic federal judge was Reynaldo Garza of Brownsville, who was appointed in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy.
Chronologically, the record-breaker for Bush came in a jurisdiction in which it is difficult to appoint a non-Hispanic. Gustavo A. Gelpi Jr. became the 24th Bush-appointed Hispanic federal judge when the Senate confirmed him in July 2006 for a Puerto Rico bench.
Gelpi was unaware of his claim to fame when recently told about it. "I guess that's my Andy Warhol 15 minutes of fame," he said, predicting that the number of Hispanic judges will continue to grow "little by little."
Just under 7 percent of the nation's approximately 1,300 federal judges are Hispanic. About 15 percent of the U.S. population is Hispanic.
Kenneth Manning, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and an expert on judicial politics, said his review of Bush's judicial appointees shows a definite pattern.
"First of all they have to be conservative," Manning said. "But the second variable that comes through in the data is that clearly diversity is a big thing in this administration."
Manning said conservative credentials trump ethnicity when Bush looks for judges.
"He will not sacrifice ideology for diversity," he said.
Overall, Clinton appointed more minorities to the bench. Seventy-five percent of his confirmed appointees were Anglo, 6.3 percent were Hispanic, and 16.2 percent were black. Eighty-three percent of Bush's confirmed appointees to the bench were Anglo. Only 6.7 percent were black.
The Hispanic numbers also reflect Bush's Texas background, according to Manning.
"Texas is a state with large Hispanic and black and Asian populations, and Bush doesn't seem to carry the same baggage that some prior Republicans have had in terms of a whites-only perspective," he said. "It's ultimately a political calculation, and it's probably a wise one."
The Hispanic numbers have won praise from officials with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the League of United Latin-American Citizens.
But the Democratic National Committee has not offered a positive word about Bush's Hispanic judicial appointees.
"It is a sign of Hispanics as a population that is growing in a lot of different ways," committee spokesman Luis Miranda said. "I don't think you can credit the Bush administration for that."
But LULAC and MALDEF welcome Bush's record on judges.
"We are generally pleased to see the judiciary becoming more diverse," said Peter Zamora, MALDEF's Washington regional counsel.
LULAC Executive Director Brett Wilkes said Bush's record on appointing Hispanic judges is "fairly good, especially for a Republican president."
"He has made a conscious effort to include diversity in his judicial picks, and he has done pretty well picking Hispanic federal judges," Wilkes said, adding that he is not surprised Bush has appointed more Hispanics than the Democrat who preceded him.
"Clinton was good on minority issues overall but wasn't so strong on Hispanic inclusiveness, not as strong as we would have liked to have seen," Wilkes said. "Democrats see minority issues in terms of black and white."
Source: The Star-Telegram
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