Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell must have woken up Monday morning and decided this would be the week he'd let his inner asshole run wild. Running roughshod over the wishes of the District of Columbia wasn't enough, so he upended Senate procedure, and protocol, and basic decency by skipping over a judicial nominee who has already waited almost 400 days for a vote, and has already been subject to just about every Republican obstruction trick they can come up with.
Luis Felipe Restrepo should have gotten a vote on Monday for confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.
Senators typically vote on nominees in the order in which they were nominated, and Restrepo is first in line of any district or circuit court nominee. Instead, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) passed him over and teed up a vote on the next person in line, Travis McDonough, a Tennessee district court nominee.
Restrepo has been waiting his turn for a vote since he was nominated in November 2014. His nomination didn't go anywhere last year, so President Barack Obama renominated him in January. Restrepo waited five months before he even got a hearing in the Judiciary Committee, thanks to his own state's senator, Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), holding him up.
After his June hearing, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) delayed the vote for another month, for no real reason. The committee finally voted to move Restrepo forward in July, unanimously, and he's been waiting in line for a confirmation vote by the full Senate ever since. […]
McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said he didn't have any news on when Restrepo might get his vote.
If McConnell doesn't allow the vote before the holiday recess, then Obama and Restrepo have to go through this whole process again for what would be the third time. Meanwhile, endangered Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, who's already gotten a lot of heat for his earlier foot-dragging on this nomination, is now desperately trying to get McConnell to give him this vote. It's not working. McConnell's spokesman snidely blew off his concerns: "We're certainly aware of the Restrepo nomination as Sen. Toomey regularly raises it with the leader and is pushing for a vote."