Stop Senate Republican Obstructionists, Obama Nominees Deserve Votes

William Lurye, AFL-CIO associate general counsel, says Senate Republicans’ obstructionist tactics blocking President Obama’s nominees must stop.

UPDATE:  Sen. Session’s attempt to filibuster Judge Hamilton’s nomination failed when the Senate voted to 70-29 (including 10 Republicans) for cloture, ending the threatened filibuster.

Today, the U.S. Senate will consider President Obama’s nomination of federal district court Judge David Hamilton to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from Wisconsin, Illinois and Judge Hamilton’s home state, Indiana.

Despite bipartisan support for this nomination, Senate Republicans have threatened to mount a filibuster, led by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), to block the nomination from coming to a vote. Sessions apparently has forgotten that when Senate Democrats threatened to filibuster President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees, Sessions decried the tactic, stating:

I have stated over and over again on this floor that I would refuse to put an anonymous hold on a judge; that I would object and fight against any filibuster on a judge, whether it is somebody I opposed or supported; that I felt the Senate should do its duty. If we don’t like somebody the President nominates, vote him or her up or down. But don’t hold them in this anonymous unconscionable limbo….

Hamilton was appointed by President Clinton in 1994. His bipartisan support includes the conservative Indiana chapter of the Federalist Society, and Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, who calls Judge Hamilton “superbly qualified” because he has the

requisite intellect, experience, character and temperament that Americans deserve from their judges, and also…appreciates the vital, and yet vitally limited, role of the Federal judiciary faithfully to interpret and apply our laws, rather than seeking to impose their own policy views.

Senate Republicans continue to be the party of “No,” blocking Obama’s 25 executive branch nominees, like Patricia Smith to be the Solicitor of the Department of Labor, Craig Becker to serve on the National Labor Relations Board and Dawn Johnson to head the Justice Department’s important Office of Legal Counsel.

These obstructionist tactics are not based on legitimate issues with their qualifications. Sessions and his colleagues are practicing the kind of negative partisan politics voters rejected last year. Today with Judge Hamilton, and later with the other stalled nominees, they should heed Sessions’ own words and do their “duty…vote him or her up or down.”

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