In the wake of the mid-term elections, Leslie Proll, LDF Director of the Washington, D.C. office, implores the returning Senate to make top priority the over 34 judicial nominations awaiting confirmation in an op-ed posted in The Root.
By: Leslie Proll
After a hugely consequential election, the Senate returns today to complete the work of the 113th Congress. With more than 90 vacancies in the federal judiciary, confirmations of federal judicial nominees should be a top priority. And it’s important to note that of the 34 nominees pending before the Senate, nine are African American.
The Senate should move quickly to diversify North Carolina’s all-white district court bench and confirm the first black women to Georgia’s federal bench. African-American nominees to district courts in California, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Texas should be confirmed by the end of the session.
In the wake of last week’s election, as Republicans prepare to take the reins in Congress, they should vocally reject the idea—which many have speculated that they will embrace—of slowing down or even halting the judicial confirmation process. That kind of obstruction would be wholly inconsistent with the message of opposition to gridlock on which many of these senators campaigned. The new leaders should begin their tenure with a commitment to considering and confirming judicial nominees in regular order.
Read the full op-ed in The Root.
