Senate

GOP blocks Schumer on judges

by Jordain Carney - 09/17/15 6:14 PM ET

Senate Republicans blocked a push by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday to confirm three judicial nominations.

Schumer asked for unanimous consent for the nominations of Ann Donnelly and LaShann Moutique DeArcy Hall for the Eastern District of New York and of Lawrence Vilardo for the Western District of New York.

{mosads}But Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) objected, on behalf of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), saying the Senate has confirmed more judges during President Obama’s tenure than it had by this point under Republican President George W. Bush.

“Our Democratic friends rammed through 11 federal judges [last year],” the Senate’s No. 2 Republican added. “Under regular order, these judges should have been confirmed at the beginning of this Congress.”

Democrats have repeatedly criticized the Senate’s pace of confirming judicial nominees. So far this year, the Senate has voted on six judges.

Republicans have said that if Democrats hadn’t voted on the nominations last year, the Senate would have taken more votes so far this year.

Schumer, though, rejected that argument, suggesting Republicans are trying to take credit for Democrats’ work.

“With all due respect for my friend from Iowa, I don’t believe you can take credit for the work like that,” he said Thursday. “You can’t slice and dice the numbers to make the Republican record on judicial confirmation any better.”

Schumer’s move comes as the Alliance for Justice released a study Thursday which found that this year’s six votes mark “the slowest pace in over 60 years” for confirming judicial nominations.

Since the start of 2015, according to the report, the number of judicial vacancies has increased from 43 to 67.

But Cornyn defended the Senate’s record, saying that this year the Judiciary Committee has “had more hearings and moved more nominees than we did last year.”

Thursday isn’t the first time Schumer has been blocked from getting unanimous consent for judicial confirmations. Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, blocked a similar request from the New York Democrat in late July.

Grassley also cited Democrats’ push to confirm judges in 2014 as the reason Republicans have confirmed only six judges so far this year.

“So put that in your pipe and smoke it, the senator from New York,” he added.

Tags Chuck Grassley Chuck Schumer John Cornyn