The Senate confirmed long-pending nominee John J. McConnell Jr.to the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island yesterday evening by a party-line vote of 50-44, after voting earlier in the day to invoke cloture and end debate on his nomination.
Eleven Republicans had joined with all of the Democrats to invoke cloture, blocking filibuster threats by Senator John Cornyn, and forcing the confirmation vote on McConnell, who was first nominated by Obama in March 2010. The confirmation delay has so strained the Rhode Island district that the court earlier this year reassigned several dozen cases to judges in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
“There was no need for cloture to be filed on this nomination,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy. “Why was the Senate not able to reach a time agreement to debate and vote on this nomination last year? It was the obstruction that prevented us from doing so. It was wrong for the Senate to knuckle under to business lobbies and it was right for the Senate to reject that opposition.”
In a statement issued before the confirmation vote, Leahy provided a detailed account of the long-held Senate tradition of deferring to the president’s district court nominees.
Sen. John McCain said in a statement:
During my 24 years in the United States Senate I have not once voted against cloture for a nominee to the district court, and I will not do so today. As a member of the ‘Gang of 14’ in 2005, I agreed that ‘nominees should be filibustered only under extraordinary circumstances.’ The nomination of Mr. McConnell does not rise to a level of ‘extraordinary circumstances.’
There are now 92 vacant federal court seats subject to Senate confirmation. To learn more about the judicial vacancies crisis and follow developments, visit JudicialNominations.org.
[Photo courtesy of Padraic Ryan.]
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