The Senate confirmed 15 of President Trump’s judicial picks Thursday night after GOP leaders reached a deal with Democrats, clearing about a third of the backlog and closing up shop through Election Day to give senators a chance to campaign. Three of the judges are for the powerful circuit courts of appeals, while the other 12 were for district court positions. Many cleared on near-party line votes, while others were approved by voice votes. They were the first judicial confirmations since last weekend’s vote on Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. Some Republicans had hoped senators would stay in town to work on all 49 judicial picks who’d been ready for floor votes. But the 15 was the best deal the GOP could get, representing the amount of judges who could realistically have been confirmed if the Senate had devoted full time to confirmations over the next few weeks. Liberal activists were incensed that Democratic leaders agreed to the votes. “This deal was totally unnecessary and it is a bitter pill to swallow so soon after the Kavanaugh fight that so many progressive activists poured their hearts and souls into,” said Chris Kang, chief counsel for Demand Justice. Conservative activists had been hoping for even more judges, but were enthusiastic about the 15 who did clear. “I’d love for them to stay and grind them into the ground over the next four weeks, but truth be told, if you got 15 — that’s huge,” said Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government. The three circuit court nominees confirmed were David Porter for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on a 50-45 vote; Ryan Douglas Nelson for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 51-44; and Richard J. Sullivan for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 79-16. Hours before the floor vote the Judiciary Committee approved eight more judicial nominees and readied them for the floor. That means there will be 34 judicial nominees waiting for votes when the Senate returns in November for a lame-duck session. Two of the district judges who made it through committee Thursday were first picked by President Obama, but had their nominations expire. Mr. Trump renominated them. Also clearing committee was Jonathan A. Kobes for the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who was approved on a party-line vote. Democrats said Mr. Kobes, who works as a lawyer for Sen. Mike Rounds, South Dakota Republican, wasn’t ready to be a judge, citing the American Bar Association’s rating him as unqualified. But Republicans said the ABA evaluator who reviewed the nomination was biased, saying she had also rated a previous 8th Circuit pick, Judge Steven Grasz, unqualified last year. “This particular evaluator has a long history of liberal activism. So it’s no surprise that the ABA’s two ‘not qualified’ recommendations for circuit-court nominees came for nominees she evaluated,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican and the Judiciary chairman. Mr. Trump on Wednesday announced yet another slate of 13 nominees, though they may not see action until next year. Among them were three picks for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a famously liberal court whose bite conservatives have hoped to blunt by adding GOP-appointed judges. The 9th Circuit nominees were Patrick J. Bumatay, Daniel P. Collins and Kenneth Kiyul. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, objected to all three, accusing the White House or shirking its duty to consult with senators before making picks. She said she would withhold her blue slips, in a move meant to register official objection. Blue slips are a Senate courtesy that, at times, has given home-state lawmakers a veto over judges. “The decision to move forward with these nominees without consultation or responding to my acceptance of the White House offer reflects President Trump’s desire to remake the court,” Ms. Feinstein said. “I expect my blue slips to be honored as I was acting in good faith.” But Republicans have said they will treat blue slips as one factor in a nomination, not as an absolute veto over a president’s pick. Sign up for Daily Newsletters Manage Newsletters Copyright © 2021 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.<doc-sep>“I hope that our supporters understand that what we need to be focusing on is the outcome of the 2018 elections,” she said. “Our base needs to make sure that they and everybody else they can think of can go to the polls so that we can actually stop these nominees from getting through. Right now, we do not have those votes, and I think they understand that.”<doc-sep>Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his caucus will likely endure some liberal criticism for accepting the deal. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo Congress Democrats agree to confirmations of 15 Trump judges In exchange, Dems facing reelection can go home to campaign. Senate Democrats accepted an offer Thursday from Senate Republicans to confirm 15 lifetime federal judges in exchange for the ability to go into recess through the midterms, allowing endangered Democrats to campaign. The calculation by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his caucus was simple: That Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would be able to confirm roughly 15 judges if he kept the Senate in session for the next few weeks anyway. So Democrats OK’d an offer to confirm three Circuit Court judges and 12 Circuit Court judges as the price to pay to go home for election season. Under Senate rules, even if Democrats fought the nominees tooth and nail and forced the Senate to burn 30 hours of debate between each one, McConnell would have gotten them all confirmed by Nov. 1. Democrats could have conceivably left a skeleton crew of senators in Washington to force the GOP to take roll call votes on the judges over the next few weeks, although that tactic is not typically employed by the minority. Some liberal activists are urging Democrats to show more fight after Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court; Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos even said that Democrats “need a new Senate leader” after the agreement was struck. But senators had to weigh that dynamic along with the approaching midterms and the brutal Senate map. And with a half-dozen Democrats facing serious challenges in Senate races, it made more sense to make what Democrats said was a reasonable deal with McConnell so that they could make a serious run at saving endangered senators. Sign up here for POLITICO Huddle A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or updates from POLITICO and you agree to our privacy policy and terms of service. You can unsubscribe at any time and you can contact us here. This sign-up form is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) deadpanned that he was “tickled” pink that he could go home and campaign in Montana, where his race against Matt Rosendale is tightening. “If we stayed here for two or three weeks, we’d probably have done the same thing,” Tester said. “I think it’s good.” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren told the caucus that she opposed the deal, the lone Democrat to voice displeasure, according to a person briefed on the meeting. McConnell and President Donald Trump will now have confirmed 84 judges over the past two years, including two Supreme Court nominees, after the deal. Democrats also allowed a package of judges to be confirmed in August as a condition of going home. Though Senate Democratic leaders advised the agreement to their members on Thursday afternoon, several senators said on the way to the votes they were unaware what exactly their leadership had just agreed to. Any Democrat could have objected to the deal as McConnell read it on the Senate floor, but none did. “I am surprised,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). “The difficulty [Democrats] have is an angry base after the Kavanaugh confirmation, and trying to explain to them this is a necessary thing to do. That’s why Sen. Schumer gets paid the big bucks.” One nominee Democrats loathed, Thomas Farr for a federal district court judgeship in North Carolina, was left out of the package. Senate Democrats have privately argued it’s in the party’s best interest to allow quick confirmation of judges in order to let endangered red state senators go home and campaign. But Schumer and his caucus immediately endured some liberal criticism for accepting the deal. Vanita Gupta, who leads the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, called it “appalling” for the Senate to confirm those nominees without debate. And Demand Justice, a group started to fight Trump’s court picks that spent considerable amounts during the Kavanaugh fight, called the deal “totally unnecessary.” “It is a bitter pill to swallow so soon after the Kavanaugh fight that so many progressive activists poured their hearts and souls into. This period will be long remembered not just for the historic number of judges Trump has been able to confirm, but also because of how passive Democrats were in response,” said Demand Justice chief counsel Chris Kang. “The progressive grass-roots have awoken to the crisis of Trump’s takeover of the courts, and are not going to tolerate this kind of weakness for much longer.” But Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), who could conceivably mount a comeback in her state with retail politics, missed Thursday’s Senate session anyway, and there likely would have been more defections next week if the Senate hadn't taken the deal. And some Republicans said they were willing to keep the Senate in session to do more. Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) said he was happy with the progress McConnell has made, but he said he’d prefer the Senate stay in session this October and confirm even more of Trump's nominees, particularly those to the executive branch. “I give Mitch McConnell all the credit in the world for his perseverance,” Perdue said. But he added that the backlog of executive branch nominees mean “the administration hasn’t been able to form it’s government yet ... I’m ready to stay here next week, the next couple of weeks, whatever it takes.”<doc-sep>WASHINGTON — Senators, looking toward November’s elections after a bruising Supreme Court fight, reached an agreement on Thursday to leave the Capitol for the campaign trail. Republicans exacted a steep price from Democrats for an arrangement that will free up senators through Election Day: In a flurry of votes late Thursday, they pushed through 15 more judicial nominees, including three appeals court judges, on an expedited basis. In doing so, they added an exclamation mark to their victory in muscling through a second Trump Supreme Court justice, and deepened a historic imprint on the federal judiciary in President Trump’s first two years in office that could push some of the nation’s most important courts rightward for a generation. Democrats agreed to swallow the additional nominations to free up their vulnerable members to campaign full time for the next three weeks. The party is defending seats in 10 states that Mr. Trump won in 2016, and after a polarizing confirmation fight over Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, many of those senators are facing greater enthusiasm among Republican voters. Republicans, by comparison, are defending a much smaller number of vulnerable seats, and they had elected to keep the Senate in session later than is typical in an election year. At least one endangered Democrat, Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, was already back in her home state campaigning as senators pushed through the nominees.<doc-sep>
WASHINGTON — No matter how the midterm elections shake out, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has already won. The deal late this week that paved the way for the Senate to recess until after the midterm elections added three circuit court and 12 district court judges to an already historic number of conservative judges confirmed by the Senate since President Donald Trump took office, turning McConnell's quest to remake the federal courts from dream to reality. The Senate this term under McConnell has far surpassed the number of judicial confirmations of any Senate during the five past administrations: a total of 84 Trump appointees, including 29 to the circuit courts, 53 to district courts and two to the Supreme Court. Trump's nominees now fill a whopping 15 percent of the circuit court seats. The pace is particularly striking when compared with the term that preceded it: During the last two years of President Barack Obama's second term, McConnell allowed floor votes on only 22 of his judicial nominees. For comparison, Democrats confirmed 68 of President George W. Bush's nominees during the same time frame. McConnell has said his push to confirm a record number of young nominees to lifetime seats on the U.S. judicial courts will motivate GOP voters to keep the Senate Republican, and keep those confirmations coming. "Lose the Senate and the project of confirming judges is over for the last two years for President Trump," McConnell said in an interview with NPR. "That, I think, is a scary prospect to the people who like what we've been doing on the judge project and I hope will help us hold on to our majority." Republicans have had success with judicial nominees in large part because of a rule change by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in 2013. Frustrated by GOP efforts to block Obama nominees, he changed the threshold to end debate and allow confirmation votes on federal court judges from 60 votes to 51. Because of the backlog that accumulated when Republicans controlled the pace of nominations for a Democratic president, Trump entered office with the ability to fill 112 judicial vacancies — more than twice the 52 vacancies that Obama inherited in early 2009. McConnell's commitment to confirm nominees came with another electoral bonus: vulnerable Senate Democrats running for re-election faced a leader determined to keep the chamber in session — and them off the campaign trail — through the month of October unless they could quickly approve a bundle of both judicial and executive branch nominees. Now, the votes that could have taken the rest of the month were cleared in the space of a few hours late Thursday night. In addition to the 15 judicial nominees confirmed Thursday evening, the Senate unanimously approved 21 executive branch nominees. The president got lifetime judicial appointments. Senators got three precious weeks to hit the campaign trail and fight for their political lives. Whatever the outcome Nov. 6, the total for McConnell's record-breaking term is likely to keep rising: When the Senate comes back to a lame-duck session in mid-November, he's looking to get roughly 35 more judicial nominations and a score of executive branch nominees approved before Congress wraps up for the year.