Marco Rubio has "concerns" about the judges he's already endorsed.
Obstruction by Senate Republicans goes well beyond the filibuster, as anyone who has been watching the minority under Mitch McConnell for the past six years knows. Here's a case in point: Sen. Marco Rubio's
refusal to allow the nomination of two judges he's already endorsed to move forward. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are slamming Rubio over his desertion of these African-American nominees.
Rubio and fellow Florida Sen. Bill Nelson (D) recommended Brian Davis and William Thomas last year to President Barack Obama to fill vacancies on two U.S. district courts in Florida. But the nominations have since stalled in the Senate because Rubio won't provide a "blue slip" to the Senate Judiciary Committee, a customary step that signals a senator's consent to proceed with nominees from his or her state. Without a blue slip, the committee chairman won't bring up a nominee. [...]
Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) told The Huffington Post she's been trying to talk to Rubio directly, but can't get in touch with him.
"We're friends. We have been for a long time. I don't know what it is," Wilson said of Rubio. "So I say to you, Marco, 'We're depending on you. We're depending on you today. Why now? What is the holdup?'"
The holdup, CBC chairwoman Marcia Fudge (D-OH) astutely says, is just politics, "To hurt the president as best they can, in any way they can. But it's just too much." Presidential aspirations are also undoubtedly a factor. Rubio has been working overtime to try to mend fences with the teabagger base since his work on immigration reform. Holding up judicial nominations is just part of the game. Rubio's has an excuse, though. He's blaming it on fellow Republican, Chuck Grassley (IA).
In the case of Davis, Rubio cited concerns aired by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) over comments Davis made on race issues at a local NAACP meeting in 1995. Indeed, Grassley has been citing those concerns for more than a year.
"Sen. Grassley wants further clarification on that. Hopefully he'll get that," Rubio said, though he wouldn't give a timeline on how much longer Grassley plans to review Davis' past.
That's a matter for the Judiciary Committee to consider, however, which won't happen unless Rubio turns in his blue slip. And that doesn't answer why Rubio is also stalling on the Thomas nomination. Rubio's got another excuse there: he says he has "some conduct from the bench in the past," which he refused to elaborate on in an interview with Huffington Post.