Senate Republicans made good on their threat to shorten debate time on district court judges, a move that followed an earlier vote to limit debate on sub-Cabinet level appointees.
The GOP voted by a simple majority to limit debate to two hours — down from 30 hours — on district court nominees.
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Republicans say the latest change is needed to end months of delay from tactics employed by Senate Democrats who want to slow Trump’s efforts to seat new federal judges.
The vote to shorten debate time for district court judicial nominees came after lawmakers advanced the nomination of Roy Kalman Altman, 37, to serve on the bench in the Southern District of Florida.
“The Senate’s advise and consent power is not supposed to be used to slow-walk all of the president’s nominees because one party doesn’t like the president who’s been doing the nominating,” Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., said before the vote.
Republicans point to the many nominees Democrats delayed by requiring the clock to run out on all 30 hours of debate time, then voting in favor of confirmation.
“In a great many cases, the demand for a cloture vote appears to be solely about delaying and about obstructing, not anything about the specific nominee or his qualifications,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who chaired the Judiciary Committee in the last Congress.
Democrats vigorously opposed the rules change, which was achieved by the so-called nuclear option that overrules the minority filibuster with a simple majority.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Republicans are altering the rules to fill the courts with far-right judges after already confirming an historic number of judicial nominees.
“At a time when Leader McConnell brags about confirming more judges than anyone has done in a very long time, he feels the need to invoke this terribly destructive and disproportionate procedure of the nuclear option in order to fast-track even more of President Trump’s ultra conservative nominees to the federal bench,” Schumer said.
