Mitch McConnell Invokes 'Thurmond Rule' on Judicial Nominations Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced this week that he is imposing a blockade on President Obama's nominations to the circuit courts. The G.O.P. will likely hold off on blocking district court judges until early September. This is no idle threat: Mr. McConnell tends to keep his word. After Mr. Obama's inauguration, for instance, he swore he'd dedicate himself to the president's political downfall, and ever since then he's rigorously opposed everything the president wanted. Other G.O.P. lawmakers backed him up. On Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley said that Republicans have been plenty cooperative in confirming judges, and that Mr. McConnell was justified in invoking the so-called "Thurmond Rule." Named after the late Senator Strom Thurmond, it states that the opposition party can refuse to allow votes on high-level judicial nominees in the run-up to an election. A couple of points. First, Republicans have not been particularly cooperative: They have blocked or delayed scores of appointments for partisan or ideological reasons. According to the Alliance for Justice, President Obama "trails all of his five predecessors in both the total number of confirmations and in the percentage of nominees that have been confirmed." Second, the Thurmond "Rule" is hardly as strict as it sounds - despite claims to the contrary. Senator John Cornyn said: "I think this is about the time. This is traditionally when the curtain comes down on circuit court judges. And Senator Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican who has been on the Judiciary Committee for nearly 20 years, said the Thurmond Rule has "always been used" since Mr. Thurmond blocked Lyndon Johnson's appointment of Abe Fortas as Chief Justice in 1968. That's not true. The Alliance for Justice has compiled data showing that confirmations for both district and circuit courts generally continue late into the fall of election years (not at a particularly rapid clip, but the process is always sluggish). According to Think Progress, "President Carter had 5 appeals judges confirmed between this day in 1980 and that year's election;" President George W. Bush had "3 [appeals judges] confirmed during this period in 2004 and 2 in 2008." Mr. Cornyn said preemptively that Mr. Obama should not complain because if he is re-elected, or as Mr. Cornyn put it, "elected," then the delay will only last a few months. Let's check back next spring.