Warner, Webb join to usher in judge, confirmed despite partisan sparring

WASHINGTON

Amid a sometimes acrimonious debate over the Senate's slow pace in filling vacant federal judgeships, Democrats and Republicans joined Tuesday to place Virginia Supreme Court Justice Steven Agee on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Agee, 55, was confirmed on a 96-0 vote. He will take a seat on the Richmond-based court that was vacated two years ago by former Judge Michael Luttig. The 4th Circuit hears appeals from federal district courts in Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia and the Carolinas.

Agee's confirmation came largely on the strength of a bipartisan endorsement from Virginia's two senators - Republican John Warner and Democrat Jim Webb. The pair agreed shortly after Webb's election in 2006 to join forces in considering judicial candidates.

Warner and Webb jointly interviewed 4th Circuit candidates. They effectively forced President Bush to withdraw an earlier nominee, Richmond lawyer Duncan Getchell, by leaving Getchell off their list of approved candidates.

" Senator Warner and I have been able to accomplish some things in the last year and a half that I hope we can spread out to the broader body here," Webb said Tuesday. Warner called Agee "absolutely superbly qualified."

A Roanoke native, Agee was a Republican member of the House of Delegates from 1982 to 1994. He joined the state Supreme Court in 2003 after two years on the Virginia Court of Appeals.

Agee sailed through a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing earlier this spring and drew bipartisan praise on the floor in a brief debate before Tuesday's vote.

But committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and one of his predecessors, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, traded barbs over which party has done more to obstruct past nominees. Both sides were upbraided by another former committee chairman, Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter, who declared that "the conduct of both parties in this chamber has been disgraceful."

Dale Eisman, (703) 913-9872, dale.eisman@pilotonline.com