Mitch McConnell's Republican Senate has all but ended judicial confirmations for the last 18 months of President Obama's final term in office, with a few exceptions, like when home-state politics demand a Republican running for re-election allow a nominee through. This with more than
two dozen "judicial emergencies" declared in states where vacancies have drug on and on.
Republicans say there's little reason to shift gears with a lame-duck president in office and hopes running high about their prospects of winning the White House.
"It'll be a slow, steady pace," said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas).
Is it payback for Democrats invoking the so-called "nuclear option" two years ago to get their judges through? "We’re way too busy to think about things like retribution," Cornyn replied. […]
The Judiciary Committee will take up three more judicial nominations when the Senate returns from its July 4 recess. One is Luis Felipe Restrepo, who was chosen to fill a vacancy on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. Liberal groups have accused Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) of delaying that nomination for months, but Toomey disputed in an interview that he was responsible for holding up Restrepo since Obama nominated him in November. […]
Indeed, home-state politics can trump the broader war over the courts. The other two judicial nominees set for committee consideration are Travis Randall McDonough and Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr., both chosen to serve as district court judges in Tennessee and praised by their senators, Republicans Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander. And Cornyn is happy to note three of the four judges confirmed this year are from Texas.
Right now, as White House spokesman Eric Schultz points out in the article, the Judiciary Committee has approved seven nominees that haven't made it to the floor for a vote, and six of them "were nominated last year, and three would fill judicial emergencies." None of the nominees waiting for a vote is controversial, and if they ever do make it to the floor, they'll likely be confirmed near unanimously. Meanwhile, there are 63 vacant slots and 47 of them haven't even received a nomination—half of those in states with two Republican senators who have been slow to work with the president in approving nominations.
Republicans say they're not invoking the so-called "Thurmond Rule," which ends confirmation votes in July of an election year, early. But it's clear that they are going to do their best to limit this president's ability to leave his stamp on the nation's judiciary.