While an amazing amount of work got accomplished in this lame duck session, and the Senate did manage to work through half of the 38 judicial nominations awaiting floor action, 19 nominations died. Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron writes:
Three circuit court and 16 district court nominees approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee were prevented from receiving votes, including even the most noncontroversial individuals, many of whom are actually supported by Republican Senators. Here is the tragic fact: as a result of unprecedented Republican political gamesmanship, President Obama ends the first half of his first term with a smaller percentage of his nominees confirmed than any previous president.
Our federal courts are in crisis. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has identified 44 "judicial emergencies," where there aren't enough judges to hear the cases brought to them by the American people. Even the top judges in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, led by Chief Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski, a Reagan appointee, wrote a letter to the Senate complaining about the "desperate need for judges."
We know what needs to be done. The whole process will begin again in January in the new Congress and we urge the President to re-nominate all those who were left unconfirmed, including superb, widely respected nominees like Goodwin Liu and Edward Chen, who were the special targets of Republicans. Of course the vast majority of the nominees they blocked at the end of the session, and the dozens they had obstructed over the past two years, are not controversial at all. Obstruction for obstruction's sake is the hallmark of the Republican leadership. That has to stop.
In Bush's first two years in office, every federal court nominee who cleared Judiciary got a floor vote. The level of obstruction by Republicans on everything has broken a record, and judicial nominations are no exception. I've written before that the GOP isn't just content to shut down just Congress and threaten to shut down the government, but want to shut down the courts, too.
While Senate Democrats are pushing for rules reform to limit filibusters on legislation, they're also hopefully working on a plan to expedite consideration of these nominations.