Constitutional Accountability Center Constitutional Accountability Center
Federal Courts and Nominations

The Sad Arithmetic Of Senators McConnell and Grassley On Judges

Washington, DC – Later today, the U.S. Senate finally is expected to confirm Dale Drozd to sit on the federal bench in the Eastern District of California, only the seventh judicial confirmation in 2015. Constitutional Accountability Center Acting President Judith E. Schaeffer said:

 

“Today we’ll see that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can count to seven. Bully for him. Maybe now he can also learn to multiply, since President George W. Bush had almost five times as many judicial confirmations by this point in the last two years of his second term, with a Democratic-controlled Senate.

 

“Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley is also complicit in the virtual shutdown of the judicial confirmation process. With Grassley bottling up more than 20 uncontroversial nominees in Committee, and McConnell slow-walking floor votes for the handful of nominees who actually get out of Committee, Senate leaders have given Americans seeking justice in the courts a one-two punch right on the chin.

 

“At the rate it’s going, the Senate is on track to make ignominious history – the fewest number of judicial confirmations in the last two years of a presidential term going at least as far back as the Eisenhower Administration. That’s not a record to which the Senate should aspire. Majority Leader McConnell should move quickly to hold confirmation votes for the 10 other nominees still waiting for such votes on the Senate floor, and Chairman Grassley should schedule prompt hearings and votes for the nominees pending in Committee.”

 

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Resources:

 

“Senate Leaders on Target to Break Obstruction Record,” Judith E. Schaeffer, August 24, 2015: http://theusconstitution.org/text-history/3402/senate-leaders-target-break-obstruction-record 

 

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Constitutional Accountability Center (www.theusconstitution.org) is a think tank, public interest law firm, and action center dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history.

 

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