We’ve noted that this administration’s judicial appointments, and the Senate’s response to them, would reveal much about the way the current Congress will govern. So what are we to make of the March 17 selection of David Hamilton to an appeals-court position?

Hamilton, now chief judge of the federal district court in Indianapolis, will join the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, where he was once a law clerk, if confirmed. The White House news release includes this quote attributed to President Obama: “Judge Hamilton has a long and impressive record of service and a history of handing down fair and judicious decisions.” So what do those decisions, judicial and otherwise, include?

• In 2005, he ruled that the Indiana House of Representatives could not include the name of Jesus in their opening prayers. The Washington Post reports that this ruling was overturned on appeal, on technical grounds.
   
• In 2003, he struck down an Indiana law requiring abortion clinics to provide information about alternatives to the procedure at least 18 hours before the abortion. The Post said that decision also was overturned on appeal.
   
• After college, he worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), which National Review’s Stanley Kurtz has called “the largest radical group in America.”
   
• Before he became a judge, he was active in the Indiana branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Presidential aides, speaking before the formal appointment, called Hamilton a moderate, and he may well be in some cultures. Regardless, there is almost no chance that he will not be confirmed given the current makeup of the Senate. Hamilton is well-connected politically. His uncle is a former Member of Congress, he worked for U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh when Bayh was governor in Indiana, and a sister-in-law has been appointed to serve as an assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice. Both of Indiana’s U.S. Senators have endorsed his appointment.

The Senate’s response to this nomination will tell us more about them than it will about the nominee. It will be interesting to see if future nominees as are “moderate” as Hamilton, and if there is any shade of liberalism that will be unacceptable to the Senate in the next two years.