WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved three of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees, including one for an influential appeals court, for a full Senate vote.

Senators voted 18-0 to move forward with nomination of Sri Srinivasan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, considered the most important court in the country after the Supreme Court. Srinivasan is the principal deputy in the Office of the Solicitor General, the elite Justice Department unit that represents the federal government at the high court.