In June, 2015, President Obama nominated Omaha attorney Robert Rossiter, Jr. for the federal bench in Nebraska, with the approval of both of the state's senators. The Senate Judiciary Committee actually approved the nomination, unanimously in September 2015. Since then, crickets.
As Omaha attorney Robert Rossiter Jr. continues to wait for a vote, the national debate raging over the pending U.S. Supreme Court nomination has only ratcheted up the political strife surrounding any judicial appointments. […]
One way the federal court system defines a "judicial emergency" is when a vacancy has gone unfilled for more than 18 months in a district with high caseloads.
Nebraska meets the caseload threshold and recently passed that 18-month mark. The vacancy has been pending since U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon took senior status on Oct. 3, 2014.
This is another judge that would get unanimous approval from the Senate, were he to get a vote. Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley has an excuse for not pushing it. After the confirmation of Waverly Crenshaw for Tennessee's Middle District at the beginning of the week, Grassley said that "was the 324th Obama judicial nominee to be confirmed and that President George W. Bush got only 326 nominees confirmed." Apparently that means that Obama can only expect two more confirmations, never mind the fact that there are many more district court vacancies in this final year of his tenure than President Bush took into his final year. And never mind the 34 judicial emergencies that now exist, including this one in Nebraska.
The Supreme Court vacancy is emblematic of how extreme Republicans are willing to be when it comes to the judiciary. It's extraordinary, but it's by no means singular.
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