Cameron Lancaster
Posted on 04/26/2016 4:58:43 PM PDT by jazusamo
Cameron Lancaster
Senate Republicans blocked a slate of President Obama's lower court nominees Tuesday.
"The judicial confirmation process has been at a crawl for years. Now it has come to a functional standstill," said Schumer, who is expected to be the next Senate Democratic leader.
The Senate's top Republicans teamed up to block the Democratic efforts. Majority LeaderMitch McConnell objected to requests from Schumer and Hirono and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) objected to two requests from Cardin.
McConnell said the debate boils down to if the Senate is treating Obama's nominees the same way it treated past presidents' picks. He noted that at this point under President George W. Bush the Senate had confirmed 303 nominees compared to Obama's 324.
Hirono fired back that the battle over the court nominees is about "the Senate doing its job."
Democrats have repeatedly come to the Senate floor to try to move Obama nominees with little success. They note that since Republicans took back control of the Senate last year, senators have voted on 17 judicial nominations.
Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) said neither Republicans or Democrats were wholly to blame, but "as long as the other side is saying that we're holding things up, I've got to point out that it's not just a one-sided thing."
The back-and-forth on the Senate floor comes amid a larger, entrenched battle over filling the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
Josh Earnest, a spokesman for the White House, said Tuesday that Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland will meet with six senators this week, including three Republicans.
While 11 GOP senators have met with Obama's nominee so far, senators are showing no signs that they support moving forward with his nomination. Only two Republicans — Sen. Mark Kirk(Ill.) and Susan Collins (Maine) — back giving him a hearing.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who is up for reelection, said Tuesday that the GOP strategy is "without precedent."
"There’s a reason why no Senate has ever had the audacity to do what this Senate is doing right now, because of how clear that mission is," he added.
Bennet met with Garland earlier this month.
A few of them grew a pair..
You think so? It's more likely they know that if they don't start representing their voting fodder, the Gravy Train is leaving the station in November without them.
What could keep up the momentum? Fingers crossed that his district Cantorizes Ryan.
Biden rule, buzz off.
Just the other day, Michelle Obama was standing at a podium, publically complaining about republicans “BLOCKING Mah, huzzbinns’ choices. Year after year, BLOCKING him! She was livid.
Off Topic: Charlie Schumer doesn’t look too well. Maybe he’s on a weight reduction diet. I’ve never seen him look so drawn and tired.
Any Michelle action figure would need to have moving arms for the ‘why me again?’ gestures, and a turbo charged mouth that never ceased to open and close. The head would have to be capable of ‘Oh No, you did-’nt!” horizontal wags, also.
I am not going to miss that hideous beast once she leaves the White House!
Some of the most toxic federal court decisions have been made or endorsed by Republican appointees. There is something wrong with the system itself. Even if we get another SC justice confirmed to replace Justice Scalia, the chances are OVERWHELMING the person will be a closet liberal.
I agree, Chuckie is looking more and more like Reid and that’s not a healthy look.
I sure can’t dispute that, lets pray we get someone close to Justice Scalia because it’ll be darn near impossible to match him.
I think the GOP is finally realizing that people are royally pissed that they were given control of Congress to stop and undo Obama and then they did nothing. It is too late for them, though.
maybe the prelude to a permanent state of horizontal immobility???
Maybe Schumer has borrowed Harry Reid’s ‘exercise machine’, you know, the ‘machine’ that gave him a shiner and a broken nose.
“Charlie Schumer doesn’t look too well. “
We can hope can’t we? That sore on his lip looks like he’s been kissing frogs!
They see what's going on with Trump and getting the message about how sick and tiered their "constitutents" really are about all the betrayals.
And if Trump wins in the fall then the Democrats will do everything they can do to block Republican judicial nominees. And the surprise in all this is?
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