McConnell pushes 11 judge nominations through Senate
While the rest of Washington focused on impeachment proceedings Wednesday, Mitch McConnell successfully pressed forward on a subject that has been the one knockout success for the Republican Senate and President Donald Trump: judges.
Wednesday afternoon, the Senate majority leader forced a deal with Democrats to expedite 11 federal district judge nominations.
McConnell’s thrust is emblematic of what he sees as his crowning achievement. So far, he has led the charge changing the landscape of the federal courts across the country with a record number of appellate court judges — currently at 50 — and Supreme Court nominees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
“My motto for the remainder of this Congress is ‘leave no vacancy behind,’ ” McConnell told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday.
McConnell had scheduled procedural votes on nominees coming roughly every two hours. Two votes were held Wednesday before the agreement was reached to speed things along with 11 consecutive votes in the late afternoon. Final votes to confirm the nominees have not yet been scheduled.
The threat of keeping senators in extra days or through the weekend is a tactic as old as time, but nevertheless usually yields results. Previous deals cutting short debate and allowing nominees to be approved so senators can go home for recess have been met with liberal unhappiness, however.
Two deals reached last year allowed senators to return home to their states during the middle of the reelection campaign, but in the end it was Democratic incumbents who lost, giving the Republicans the stronger 53-47 majority they enjoy today.
In August 2018, the agreement was for 11 administration nominees. In October 2018, it was for 15 — including three appellate judges.
With their majority, Republicans can defeat any Democratic efforts to filibuster, or block a final vote on, any Trump nominee along party lines. And Democrats acknowledge there’s little they can do overall to stop McConnell.
Trump’s work transforming the courts has been the key to his legacy — and potentially keeping his electoral coalition together in 2020.
Along with the judges, also on the docket for the Senate to pass before Christmas is the $1.4 trillion spending bill. They will come back early next month to an impeachment trial for Trump.
2020 Supreme Court
McConnell also repeated his pledge to push through a new Supreme Court nominee should a vacancy open up in 2020, despite his successful effort in 2016 to block President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland.
In 2016, McConnell held up the nomination made in March, saying that it should be decided in that November’s election, which Trump won. He now says the issue is that the president and Senate were controlled by different parties, which in 2020 would not be the case.