WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama set a confrontation with Senate Republicans in motion Tuesday morning by naming a slate of judges to a top appeals court and daring his rivals to block their confirmations.
In a formal Rose Garden ceremony normally reserved for Supreme Court nominees and prominent cabinet members, Obama announced plans to nominate three people to fill the remaining vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The president called on Republicans to abandon what he called partisan obstruction of his judicial nominees and approve his nominees quickly.
“This is not about principled opposition. It’s about partisan obstruction,” Obama said. “What’s happening now is unprecedented. For the good of the American people it has to stop.
“What I’m doing today is my job,” Obama said as he announced the nominations. “What I need is the Senate to do its job.”
By nominating the judges as a group, the president is trying to restore what his allies consider to be ideological balance on a crucial court that has overturned some important parts of his first-term agenda. And he hopes to heighten public anger at Republicans for repeatedly using the threat of filibuster to block his choices for the Cabinet and the courts.
The effort could culminate this summer in a legislative collision between the two parties as the Democratic and Republican leadership clash over how and whether to rewrite long-standing procedural rules that permanently could change the dynamic in the chamber.
The president named Cornelia T.L. Pillard, a law professor; Patricia Ann Millett, an appellate lawyer; and Robert L. Wilkins, a federal district judge, as his choices to fill the three open spots on the 11-member court.
Even before the formal announcement, Republicans signaled their opposition to what they called Obama’s effort to “pack” the appeals court with judges who would adhere to the ideology of the president and his Democratic allies.
“It’s hard to imagine the rationale for nominating three judges at once for this court given the many vacant emergency seats across the country, unless your goal is to pack the court to advance a certain policy agenda,” Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, said.
Grassley and other Republicans in the Senate are pushing a plan that would reduce the size of the appeals court in Washington by shifting two of its judges to circuit courts in other parts of the country and eliminating a third seat altogether. They argue that other circuits are overworked and in need of additional judges.
Democrats oppose that idea, calling it part of an elaborate effort by Republicans to prevent Obama from putting his legitimate stamp on the judiciary, the way his predecessors like George W. Bush have done.
Obama has made most of his judicial nominations with little fanfare. The GOP has blocked many of those nominations.
