Private: Yglesias Interview: Senate Delays’ Effect on the Judiciary

Matthew Yglesias, a fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and a blogger at the organization's ThinkProgress, chatted with ACSblog about increased use of the filibuster and other delaying tactics to scuttle the president's judicial nominations. Yglesias spoke with ACSblog following his participation in a recent ACS panel discussion on the filibuster and the pace of judicial confirmations.

Yglesias said the concept of debate over judicial nominations is not obsolete or irrelevant, "but that the procedural tactics around congressional debate are not really about debate, their just about delay and taking up time. We are seeing an unprecedented level, I think of just pure delay, in the sense where you don't have the votes to block someone and you don't have any intention of blocking them, but you just engage in procedural maneuvers to slow them down."

Yglesias also addressed the Obama administration's reaction to the slow pace of judicial confirmations, saying "I think the Obama administration has not made any really serious effort to elevate the judicial side of this; they haven't nominated all that many people, they haven't talked in a really public way about the difficulty their nominees are having. The Bush administration after putting up with a lot of delays, at one point decided to make a big point of emphasis; that it really wanted to get judges confirmed and they had an enormous amount of success after they did it."

Watch the interview with Yglesias below, or download a podcast of it here.

The full video of the ACS event on the filibuster and judicial confirmations is available here. Earlier this week, several senators took to the Senate floor to denounce the delays in conforming executive branch and judicial nominees.

Access to Justice, Executive Power, Importance of the Courts