Senate Nears Adjournment Without Voting on Critical Judicial Nominations

December 22, 2010 - Posted by Jeff Miller

The Senate headed toward adjournment on Wednesday having voted to confirm only 19 of the 38 judicial nominations pending on the Senate floor. The other 19 nominations fell victim to a two-year campaign of obstruction by Republican senators that prevented even the most noncontroversial nominees from getting an up-or-down confirmation vote on the Senate floor.

As a result, only 60 of President Obama’s nominees to the lower federal courts were confirmed during his first two years in office. That’s substantially lower than the 100 confirmations for President George W. Bush and 126 for President Clinton during their first two years in office.

The failure of the Senate to overcome the obstructionist tactics of the minority party greatly increased the number of judicial vacancies on the federal courts. At one point this fall, there were more than 100 vacant judgeships, and about half of those were declared “judicial emergencies” by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The vacancies and the increased workload for sitting federal judges meant long delays for people seeking to enforce their rights or settle their legal disputes in court.

“The disrespect shown to our federal courts has been beyond disturbing,” said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Courtrooms without judges are simply incapable of dispensing justice.”

Henderson said the civil and human rights coalition was “especially troubled by the number of highly qualified women and minority nominees who have been denied confirmation votes during the 110^th Congress.”

Goodwin Liu, nominated to the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, and two district court nominees, Edward Chen of California and Louis Butler of Wisconsin, were among the nominees approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee but denied confirmation votes on the Senate floor. Henderson urged the White House to renominate them and other unsuccessful nominees in the 111^th Congress.

Read Henderson's full statement.