It's Monday, April 11 and Day 58 since Justice Antonin Scalia died and Mitch McConnell laid down his Supreme Court blockade: No meetings, no hearings, no votes on his replacement. It's Day 26 since President Obama named Merrick Garland to be Scalia's replacement. So what does the Senate have on tap for today, besides not having hearings or votes on Garland? They're starting work at 3:00 PM today, and believe or not, will vote on a lower court confirmation.
The Senate will vote Monday on whether to confirm Nashville attorney Waverly Crenshaw for a federal judgeship in Tennessee, a break in the political stalemate over President Barack Obama’s judicial nominations.
It's been 14 months since Obama nominated Crenshaw to U.S. district court. But even with the support of Tennessee’s Republican senators, the nomination was bogged down in the partisan battle over how many lifetime judges Obama should be able to pick in the last months of his presidency.
Fourteen months since he was nominated. He was unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last July. And just now, Mitch McConnell decides he can get a confirmation vote, which will almost certainly also be unanimous. This U.S. district court—the Middle District of Tennessee—has been declared a "judicial emergency" because of the number of cases piled up on too few justices.
This leaves 27 of Obama's nominees to district courts in limbo, as well as five to the appeals courts. Oh, and lest we forget—one to the Supreme Court.