On November 29, veteran Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking member during the 112th Senate, eschewed a valuable opportunity to temper the “confirmation wars” that have troubled judicial appointments for 25 years. At the first panel meeting of the lame duck session, Grassley exercised the minority party’s prerogative to hold over committee votes on five well-qualified consensus nominees for a week. The senator should have seized this opportunity and allowed votes because Republicans must cooperate with Democrats in swiftly filling the 82 lower court openings, which undermine the delivery of justice.
For the past quarter century, Democratic and GOP charges, recriminations and paybacks have plagued selection, primarily due to divided government. Democrats currently control the presidency and the Senate, but they should work together with Republicans to stop or ameliorate this unproductive cycle. That dynamic persisted across the 111th Senate. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), whom Grassley succeeded as ranking member in 2011, regularly held over panel ballots for seven days for many strong uncontroversial nominees without convincing reasons.
