ABA urges Senate vote on 20 district court nominees awaiting final action
ABA President Linda Klein is calling on Senate leaders to schedule a floor vote on 20 nominees for district judgeships whose nominations are pending on the Senate calendar.
In a Sept. 6 letter (PDF) to Senate leaders, Klein says the Senate Judiciary Committee found all 20 nominees to be fully qualified and reported them to the Senate for final action “with overwhelming bipartisan support.” A press release is here.
“These nominees have waited a long time for an up-or-down vote: Twelve were nominated over 300 days ago and six others were nominated over 200 days ago,” the letter says. Though the ABA believes every nominee deserves a timely floor vote, it is not including two federal appeals court nominees in its request, the letter says.
The 20 unfilled judgeships are among 89 vacancies in federal courts, according to the letter. “With over 10 percent of authorized judgeships now vacant, the prompt filling of vacancies is becoming a matter of increasing urgency,” the letter says. “This is especially true for vacancies that have existed for so long and created such untenable workloads for the remaining judges on the court that the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has declared them to be judicial emergencies.”
The letter says that long-standing court vacancies create strains that reduce the quality of justice and deprive litigants of the chance to resolve their civil disputes. At least six nominees could be voted on at a time, which would keep the Senate from having to spend “undue time on confirmation matters,” the letter says.
