The Republicans used committees and a host of since-discarded rules (like one requiring both home state senators to sign off on any judicial nominees) to hold up a large slate of Clinton judicial nominees. It was their preferred method of obstruction, which they gleefully wielded. Jesse Helms alone was a one-man obstruction machine.
And yes, they even used the now-maligned filibuster to try and stop Richard Paez from the 9th Circuit. Sen. Smith, Republican of NH, even said on the floor of the Senate:
But don't pontificate on the floor of the Senate and tell me that somehow I am violating the Constitution of the United States of America by blocking a judge or filibustering a judge that I don't think deserves to be on the circuit court because I am going to continue to do it at every opportunity I believe a judge should not be on that court. That is my responsibility. That is my advise and consent role, and I intend to exercise it. I don't appreciate being told that somehow I am violating the Constitution of the United States. I swore to uphold that Constitution, and I am doing it now by standing up and saying what I am saying." (March 7, 2000)
Frist voted with Smith on his filibuster.