Schumer withdraws long-awaited judicial nomination vote over attendance issues

Senate Democrats on Wednesday withdrew a vote to advance the nomination of Dale Ho to become a district judge for the Southern District of New York due to attendance issues.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced shortly before a cloture vote was set to occur that it was being pulled. The move is related to the absence of Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who is out this week.

“Due to a sinus infection, Senator Murray is working remotely and taking meetings from her home in Washington state,” a Murray spokesperson said. “She expects to be back in D.C. next week.”

Ho, a voting rights lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, has waited for nearly two years for a vote to sit on the bench. President Biden was forced to renominate him for the post in January. He was voted through the Senate Judiciary Committee on an 11-10 vote in early February, with top Republicans making clear their opposition to his nomination. 

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters Tuesday that Senate Democrats were experiencing attendance issues that would cause issues for them to pass partisan nominations. 

“Let me be absolutely clear. Senate Republicans will not participate in rubber stamping radical nominees,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on the floor earlier in the day, urging his colleagues to vote against the president’s slate of “unfit” nominations this week. 

Instead of voting on Ho, Schumer teed up a cloture vote on Dilawar Syed to become deputy administrator of the Small Business Administration.