Senate Republicans’ Delay Tactics for Biden’s Judicial Nominees Fall Flat as Senators Skip Pivotal Votes

Senate Republicans are unlikely to block or even seriously delay President Biden’s final slate of judicial nominees due to the fact that GOP senators are simply not showing up to work. Vice President-elect Vance shot back at someone on social media when he was called out for his own absences. With a 51–49 Senate controlled by Democrats, it would take only two Democratic votes to kill a nomination from Mr. Biden, though Republicans have even greater power to delay the confirmations because Vice President Harris is on vacation halfway across the world in Hawaii. Even if the vote ended up in a tie, it would take her at least half-a-day to return to Washington to cast her tie-breaking vote. Just since election day, Senator Schumer has gotten seven of Mr. Biden’s judicial nominees to the federal bench, with several more passing final procedural votes to move to final confirmation. Those judges could be confirmed as soon as Friday. One of the greatest accomplishments of President Trump’s first term in office was his rapid confirmation of more than 200 judges to the federal judiciary between 2017 and 2021, and Mr. Biden is rapidly approaching that record. If Mr. Schumer can get just a dozen more judges over the finish line before the Senate changes control in January, he will have beaten Trump’s record. Conservative activists have been fierce in their criticism of senators who have missed votes on these judicial nominations. On Tuesday, a producer for Steve Bannon’s show “War Room,” Grace Chong, wrote on X that Republican senators’ chronic absences in the past two weeks have cost them valuable time in blocking or at least delaying Mr. Biden’s judicial nominations. Mr. Vance — who has been in Florida with the president-elect interviewing candidates for the cabinet — shot back at Ms. Chong in a vitriolic post on X. “Grace Chong is a mouth breathing imbecile who attacks those of us in the fight rather than make herself useful,” Mr. Vance wrote. Ms. Chong had criticized him and other Republicans for missing a judge confirmation vote that succeeded with only 49 votes in support of the nomination. “If I had shown up to the vote in question, the nominee would have succeeded 49-46 rather than 49-45,” the vice president-elect said.“I was meeting with President Trump to interview multiple positions for our government, including for FBI Director. I tend to think it’s more important to get an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than it is for Republicans to lose a vote 49-46 rather than 49-45,” Mr. Vance wrote. It isn’t just conservative activists who are mad about the absences by Senate Republicans. According to Axios, Senator Tillis said Wednesday that he was “very angry” that the GOP wasn’t doing enough to at least delay the nominations. On Tuesday, three Republican senators — Senator Cruz, Senator Cramer, and Senator Hagerty — missed two confirmation votes on judges because they had traveled with Trump to Texas to attend the launch of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket. Three other senators — Mr. Vance, Senator Rubio, and Senator Braun, who is now the governor-elect of Indiana — were also absent. Senator Graham went on Fox News on Tuesday night to decry the fact that Republicans weren’t showing up, and that Democrats were, for the most part, sticking together to get the judicial nominees confirmed. “If I can get two Democrats to vote against a Biden nominee and [Republicans] all show up, we win,” Mr. Graham said. “There are a handful of Democratic judicial nominees that two Democrats or more will vote against, but we all gotta show up.”

Senate Republicans’ Delay Tactics for Biden’s Judicial Nominees Fall Flat as Senators Skip Pivotal Votes

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