Mr. da Silva's decision on Tuesday to seek Mr. Rohter's expulsion provoked a strong counterreaction, led by press associations, legal and judicial groups and opposition politicians.
Other Florida lawmakers and judicial groups speculated that Rubio's opposition may be fueled by politics.
Potentially more interesting is an automated poll conducted by the firm 20/20 Insight L.L.C., which polled on behalf of the liberal-leaning judicial reform group Justice at Stake.
By the Supreme Court's 1998-99 them, the liberal judicial watchdog group Court Watch found that Mr. Bush's appointees were "eliminating the excesses of the G.O.P. old guard".
Justice Hathaway, 58, filed retirement papers with the state on Dec. 20, but the move was not made public until Jan . 7when a state judicial watchdog group filed misconduct charges against her for the real estate transactions.
In a sign of how much the debate has shifted, the Alliance for Justice, a liberal judicial advocacy group that had spoken kindly of Mr. Mukasey at first, said Thursday that it would oppose him.
Dick Trabulsi, chairman of the political action committee for Texans Against Lawsuit Reform, a conservative judicial reform group, said any criticism of Justice Owen because she sided with Enron was misguided.
A right-wing judicial advocacy group is already running ads in four states ― West Virginia, Alabama, Indiana and North Dakota ― pressuring vulnerable Democrats to support Kavanaugh.
He firmly rejected the GOP's and conservative judicial watchdog group's phony, politically self-serving strict Constitutional constructionist litmus test for judges.
According to the judicial watchdog group Alliance for Justice, the Senate has confirmed only 8 judges in 2015, the slowest pace in over 60 years.
