Washington – The Senate on Thursday confirmed three appellate court judges, ending years of Democratic maneuvers against some of President Bush’s judicial nominees that had threatened the Senate with institutional breakdown.
All told, the Senate in the past three weeks confirmed five previously blocked judges, including three of Bush’s most controversial nominees. Those confirmations end, for now, the Senate’s preoccupation with federal judicial nominees.
It also turns the page on a remarkable chapter in the Senate’s handling of such nominees – a chapter that featured 14 bipartisan dealmakers (including Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo.) who short-circuited a looming showdown over Senate rules and the powers of the Senate and the president.
The five judicial confirmations, however, represent the first and easiest stage of the eleventh-hour agreement forged last month by seven Republicans and seven Democrats. Pending nominations – or, more likely, a Supreme Court vacancy – could seriously test their unity and put the Senate on a confrontational path again.
Under that agreement, the seven Democrats agreed not to use the rules of extended debate, or filibuster, to block a confirmation vote on three of the most contentious nominees – Priscilla Owen of Texas, Janice Rogers Brown of California and William Pryor of Alabama. A filibuster requires 60 votes to end debate, a difficult threshold for Republicans, who control 55 of the Senate’s 100 seats.
Pryor won confirmation Thursday to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta by a 53-45 vote that didn’t break strictly along party lines. Brown won confirmation on Wednesday to the District of Columbia Circuit Court, and Owen late last month was confirmed to the 5th Circuit in New Orleans.
The Senate on Thursday also confirmed David McKeague and Richard Griffin to the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati. Both had faced Democratic filibusters, but Senate leaders assured their confirmation under a separate agreement last month.
Some Democrats were left holding their noses but had little choice under the deal by the bipartisan 14.
Pryor, an ardent anti-abortionist, may be best known on the national stage for his role in the controversy over a display of the Ten Commandments in the courtroom of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore. As the state attorney general, Pryor supported Moore’s right to display the monument, but after the judge said he would defy a federal court order to remove it, Pryor enforced the order and prosecuted Moore for ethics violations, leading to his removal from the bench.
As a result of his role in the controversy, Pryor earned the enmity of liberal groups, who criticized his support for the display, as well as from conservative groups, who complained that he enforced a court order that they opposed.
