WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans are acting quite angry that Democrats are using the lame duck to confirm many of President Joe Biden’s judges.
“I’m a little frustrated,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told reporters Tuesday. “After last night’s voting spectacle, I wonder what we are doing.”
Capito was referring to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is planning votes on some of Biden’s judicial picks on Monday evening. Republicans don’t have the votes to stop the advance of Biden’s nominees, so they have delayed the process for hours, forcing time-consuming votes for otherwise routine procedural steps.
It kept everyone in the Senate later than they wanted.
“Last night we were voting over and over again for these liberal judges that Chuck Schumer wants to bring in and ram through at the last minute before the balance of power shifts,” the West Virginia Republican complained. “I would implore our leadership to focus on the important issues the American people are thinking about: that means completing our work by the end of the year and moving on to next year.”
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) emerged from a Republican lunch concerned that some of his colleagues were not in town, making it easier for Democrats to get more judges confirmed. He said he was happy to see Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who is now the vice president-elect, returning to the Senate on Tuesday.
“We want to see him and some of our members back because of the voices we have,” Hoeven said. “Especially against some circuit court judges.”
As a reporter tried to change the subject, Hoeven interrupted to reiterate how important it is for Republican senators to come back to DC immediately
“Because, you know, we could potentially win some of those votes if we got all our people here,” he said. “Especially in court.”
Even President-elect Donald Trump took to social media to say that Democrats are still confirming Biden’s judges and demanded that Republicans stop them.
“The Democrats are trying to stock the courts with radical left judges on their way out,” Trump shouted in a post on Tuesday. “Republican Senators need to show up and hold the line – no more judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!”
It’s a pretty ridiculous moment.
That’s not just because Democrats still control the Senate in the coming weeks and can proceed as they please. It’s because when the tables were turned in 2020 — with the Republican Party in lame-duck control of the Senate and Biden having just defeated Trump — Republicans took full advantage of confirming as many of Trump’s picks as possible.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) confirms many of Biden’s judges and President-elect Donald Trump is angry. Getty Images
Republicans confirmed 23 of Trump’s lifetime federal judges in 2020, after Biden won the election. That doesn’t even take into account the Republican Party’s unprecedented race to confirm Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett in October 2020, as votes were already being cast in the presidential election.
Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), who will be Senate majority leader in January, was among those celebrating Trump’s number of confirmed judges during the 2020 lame duck.
“A few weeks ago, we appointed to the bench one of the most qualified Supreme Court justices in living memory,” Thune said in a speech on the Senate floor on November 18, 2020, after Biden won the election.
“This week we will confirm five district judges, bringing the total number of judges we have confirmed over the past four years to nearly 230,” he said. “Confirming good judges is one of our most important responsibilities as senators.”
In the same speech, the South Dakota Republican condemned Democrats for blocking some of President George W. Bush’s 2004 judicial nominees.
“I was one of many Americans upset by the blockage of talented, well-qualified nominees,” he said. “And it was one of the main reasons why I ran for Senate.”
Thune sounds very different this week, as he also complains about Democrats lining up votes for Biden’s judicial picks. He is even reportedly taking credit for the Republican Party’s efforts Monday night to delay the Democrats’ votes.
“If Senator Schumer thought Senate Republicans would simply switch over and allow him to quickly confirm multiple Biden-appointed judges to lifetime jobs in the final weeks of the Democratic majority, he thought wrong,” Thune told ABC News.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates mocked Thune’s about-face.
“Delaying the confirmation of highly qualified, experienced judges in practice takes a toll on voters and creates backlogs in criminal cases – which means Senator Thune was right in 2020 when he said senators have every compelling reason to work together in good faith working with the Federal Bank staff,” Bates said in a statement. “There is no excuse for choosing partisanship over enforcing the rule of law.”
Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) is angry that Democrats are using the lame duck to confirm Biden’s judges, but was quite chuffed when Republicans used the 2020 lame duck to confirm Trump’s judges. Andrew Harnik via Getty Images
As much as Republicans may complain, Democrats still have several weeks of control of the Senate, and Schumer plans to use that time to confirm as many of Biden’s pending judicial nominees as possible — possibly all of them.
As of Tuesday evening, the Senate had confirmed 217 of Biden’s judges since he took office. There are 26 judicial nominees still awaiting Senate action, including 22 nominees for the district court and four nominees for the court of appeals.
If Democrats can confirm them all before Congress adjourns for a year, it would bring Biden’s total number of lifetime federal judges to 243. That’s more than Trump got in his first term, 234, and it would be a huge win for Biden if Democrats can pull it off.
“It’s no secret that the Senate is making progress in confirming more of Biden’s judicial nominees,” Schumer told reporters on Tuesday.
Since late last week, he has lined up confirmation votes for 12 of Biden’s district court nominees and one appellate court nominee, Embry Kidd, who was confirmed Monday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The Senate too Mustafa Kasubhai confirmed a candidate for Oregon District Court on Tuesday.
All these judges are appointed for life. Because the Senate does not need the House to confirm judges, perhaps a president’s most lasting legacy, Schumer will continue voting on all of Biden’s court nominees.
Senate rules require up to two hours of debate on each district judge, which includes most of Biden’s remaining judicial picks. So, for example, if Schumer lined up votes for five of them, and the Republicans decided to take those votes away, he would keep the senators in session for ten hours to get through them all.
“We will continue to work to confirm these lifetime appointments,” Schumer said. “It’s way too important. We won’t let anything stand in our way.”
He warned senators to be prepared for another late night on Wednesday “to get as many judges ready as possible.”
With the clock ticking, Republicans are trying to get all their colleagues back in Washington. Five GOP senators missed votes Tuesday: Sens. Mike Braun (Ind.), Kevin Cramer (ND), Ted Cruz (Texas), Bill Hagerty (Tenn.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.).
Hoeven said he was unsure if or when all the missing senators will return.
“We’re going to have a dialogue and try to see if we can’t get everyone back,” he said.
The Democrats plow on regardless. Schumer waved away a reporter’s question about some Republicans promising to use procedural rules to boost Senate business in an effort to stop him from appointing more judges.
“They may try a delaying tactic,” he said, “but we will persevere.”
