Senate confirms Brown for U.S. court

0 Comments | USA TODAY, June, 2005 | by Kathy Kiely and Joan Biskupic

WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Janice Rogers Brown, an Alabama sharecropper's daughter, to become a judge on one of the nation's most powerful courts after a heated debate in which she was praised as a role model and denounced as an extremist.

The vote to put Brown, a California Supreme Court justice, on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was 56-43.

Brown, 56, is the second judge to be confirmed under a bipartisan agreement that allows votes on some of President Bush's judicial nominees whom Democrats had been blocking. U.S. Appeals Court Judge Priscilla Owen was confirmed May 25.

The May 23 deal preserves Democrats' ability to filibuster other judicial nominees, including future Supreme Court picks. A filibuster...