Says the guy with a bunch of bills that Congress has already passed sitting on his desk collecting dust.
Even so, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) has promised to advance the nomination of Judge Robert Wilkins, currently a Judge on the D.C. District court. There is no reason for the Senate to treat the Wilkins nomination any differently than it did the first two. The same reasons that caused the Senate to block the first two nominations still apply—specifically the court’s low workload, the high institutional costs of inflating the bench with unneeded jurists, and the unacceptability of nominating judges to alter judicial outcomes.
The truth is that Democrats want to remake the D.C. Circuit to give the President a regulatory blank check. The President did not announce three D.C. Circuit nominees on one day out of concern for the volume of cases the court hears. All the White House cares about is the survival of its aggressive regulatory agenda. That is why Senator Reid told Nevada Public Radio, “We’re focusing very intently on the D.C. Circuit. We need at least one more. There’s three vacancies, we need at least one more and that will switch the majority.”
The irony in all of this is that, despite highly selective criticism of certain hot-button decisions, the D.C. Circuit has affirmed the Obama administration’s regulations slightly more than it did Bush era regulations. According to the federal courts’ statistics, the D.C. Circuit reversed administrative agencies in 16.7 percent of the cases it decided during the 2009-2012 reporting years. From 2001-2008, it reversed administrative agencies in 18.8% of the cases it decided. The court continues its work, steadily, non-ideologically, and with collegiality from one administration to the next..............."