RNLA Executive Director Michael Thielen wrote today in the Daily Caller about how Senate Democrats are attacking and delaying President Trump's excellent judicial nominees:
Thirty years ago, the Senate rejected Judge Robert Bork for the Supreme Court after a series of unprecedented and often untrue attacks by Democrats on one of the nation’s foremost legal scholars. Today, the Democrats and their allies are arguably treating judicial nominees worse. For while the attacks were one-sided, the vote to defeat Judge Bork was at least bipartisan. Today, Democrats and their allies make no such efforts to actually defeat nominees they do not like; instead, they attempt to obstruct and sully the character of nominees.
But Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley have expertly led the Senate and are not allowing the Democrats to prevail:
Fortunately, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley does not have unlimited patience with Democrats’ games and obstruction. Thanks to the leadership of Chairman Grassley, 18 nominees are now on the floor awaiting a vote. And the need is great. There are still over 140 vacancies on the federal bench, with 64 classified as judicial emergencies.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has also tired of Senate Democrats’ partisanship and has made the confirmation of judges a priority, with four Circuit Court nominees to be confirmed by the end of this week. As of publication, the new Judge Barrett of the Seventh Circuit and Judge Larsen of the Sixth Circuit have just been confirmed.
Despite the Democrats’ obstruction and delays, Chairman Grassley and Leader McConnell are keeping the process moving, understanding how important these principled nominees are to the American people. Democrats have forced cloture votes on all confirmed judicial nominees from President Trump, compared to none at this point in the Obama, George W. Bush, Clinton, or Reagan administrations. Of course, these cloture votes are simply a delaying tactic, since the Democrats abolished the filibuster for judicial nominations lower than Supreme Court in 2013.
Mr. Thielen provides examples from several currently pending and recently confirmed nominees, including Scott Palk, just confirmed for the Western District of Oklahoma; David Stras, nominated for the Eighth Circuit; Ryan Bounds, nominated for the Ninth Circuit; Amy Barrett, just confirmed to the Seventh Circuit; and Steven Grasz, nominated to the Eighth Circuit. Democrats have baselessly attacked all of them, including Palk who was first nominated to the seat by President Obama, but Leader McConnell and Chairman Grassley are working to ensure that all these superb nominees are confirmed.
RNLA Executive Director Michael Thielen wrote today in the Daily Caller about how Senate Democrats are obstructing and delaying President Trump's nominees on an unprecedented scale:
Last month, President Trump claimed that the confirmation process for his cabinet had been “record-setting long — and I mean record-setting long — with some of the finest people in our country being delayed and delayed and delayed.” Trump’s cabinet nominees were pending with the Senate for 25 days, on average, compared to zero to two days, on average, for the last three presidents. Fourteen of them went through the cloture process, compared to just seven of President Obama’s cabinet nominees during his entire tenure. Even the Washington Post recognized that Trump has “faced unusually sustained opposition for a new president” and gave his claim a rare Geppetto Checkmark, reserved for claims that are “surprisingly correct.” . . .
No Democratic senator has returned a blue slip, a Senate tradition allowing senators to give approval for a judicial nominee from their state to move forward, for any of President Trump’s judicial nominees. Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen was nominated to the Sixth Circuit back on May 8. Michigan voters re-elected Justice Larsen with 57 percent of the vote in 2016, and she is widely respected. Yet Michigan has two Democrat senators, and her nomination may be delayed so that they can toe the party line laid down by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Only three of Trump’s nominee’s to the U.S. Department of Justice have been confirmed. . . . Noel Francisco’s nomination to be solicitor general, the number three position in the Justice Department, has been pending since April 24. . . . Most recently, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has signaled that Democrats intend to engage in wholesale obstruction of all U.S. Attorney nominees. . . .
Democrats are traditionally the party of big government, looking to government for solutions to all of life’s problems, big and small. But what we have learned since President Trump took office is that Democrats only look to the government when they are in control of it. They are perfectly happy to obstruct government’s operation—and ignore the will of the people as expressed through our system of representative government—when they do not control the levers of power.
Mr. Thielen calls for an end to the delay and attacks tactics and for the American people to tell Democratic senators that they oppose "obstruction of qualified nominees in the Senate."
