David Hamilton

The U.S. Senate confirmed David Hamilton by a vote of 59-39 Thursday to fill a vacancy in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.

The Politico report of his confirmation notes that Sen. Richard Lugar, from Hamilton's home state of Indiana, cast the only Republican vote for the judge. Here's the vote breakdown.

It took eight months for Hamilton, a federal trial judge, to be confirmed, after he came under Republican attack. His critics have said that he embraced a "liberal activist" judicial philosophy.

Hamilton was President Obama's first judicial nominee. There are eight nominees now awaiting confirmation, according to Bloomberg.

WASHINGTON (By CHARLIE SAVAGE) - President Obama has sent the Senate far fewer judicial nominations than former President George W. Bush did in his first 10 months in office, deflating the hopes of liberals that the White House would move quickly to reshape the federal judiciary after eight years of Republican appointments.

Mr. Bush, who made it an early goal to push conservatives into the judicial pipeline and left a strong stamp on the courts, had already nominated 28 appellate and 36 district candidates at a comparable point in his tenure. By contrast, Mr. Obama has offered 12 nominations to appeals courts and 14 to district courts.

Federal Bench: Yet another judicial nominee seeks to impose the "empathy" standard on the courts. He thinks judges should base rulings on a plaintiff's status, legislate from the bench and amend the Constitution.

Indiana federal judge David Hamilton stands poised to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate to assume a seat on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals serving Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. He's a former fundraiser for Acorn and a former leader of the Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

He is also another in a series of activist judges who believe the U.S. Constitution is not etched in stone but made of clay, ready to be molded into anything they want. He shares the beliefs of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Edward Chen, nominee for the Northern District of California, that laws can be made from the bench and that empathy, not original intent, should be a judge's guide.

MARCH 17, 2009, WASHINGTON, D.C. --- The Judicial Confirmation Network (www.judicialnetwork.com) today reacted to President Obama's reported plans to make his first nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals this week, Judge David Hamilton from Indiana:

"Judge Hamilton is no 'moderate,' as the Obama White House is trying to spin him. The fact is, he was vice-president for litigation and a board member of the Indiana chapter of the ACLU, and he appears to have made rulings that show his willingness to bend the law to reach outcomes favored by his ACLU allies, which are inconsistent with the proper role of a judge under our Constitution but which fit the pattern of ruling based upon 'heart' and 'empathy' for certain classes of litigants, which then-candidate Barack Obama said he would be looking for in judges during the campaign. The problem is, judges cannot rule on that basis; their job is to apply the law impartially and not favor certain types of litigants before the court.

"At the end of the day, I think there are some senators who believe the true role of the judge is not to be an activist,” Marx told CBN News. “A judge should not to impose their own personal polices from the bench and that’s going to moderate some of those judges and hopefully help Obama follow though on his promise to be a trans-partisan leader. This initial nomination of Judge David Hamilton does not bode well though."

"This is the first time in history that a president has put forth as his gold standard for judicial nominees the very definition of judicial activism," Long said.

Speaking at a Republican National Lawyers Association conference at the National Press Club, Santorum insisted to a skeptical audience that filibustering judicial nominees would be counterproductive. Two questioners wondered why Republicans should show restraint after Democrats blocked several of President Bush's nominees. "We will lose every single filibuster attempt, even if it's the worst judge in the world. We don't have the votes," Santorum rejoined. "You don't pull out a gun if everyone in the room knows it's not loaded."

During the presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama said that "the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges" is whether they have "the heart, the empathy," for certain groups of people. Those worthy of empathy, according to candidate Obama...

In defending the first Obama federal appellate court pick yesterday at the White House press briefing, spokesman Robert Gibbs cleared up any doubt as to whether the President was sticking with the lawless standard for evaluating judicial nominees that he articulated on the campaign trail (and that he invoked as a Senator to filibuster Justice Alito and vote against Chief Justice Roberts).

President Barack Obama picked an Indiana federal judge for his first judicial nomination Tuesday, but first he locked in the support of Indiana's Democratic and Republican senators....

When he ran for President, Obama said he'd set new and higher standards for bipartisanship in many things, including judicial nominations.