Senators Reach Deal to Vote on 10 Judicial Nominees This Month
Senate leaders have agreed to vote on 10 pending federal judicial nominees in the next two weeks, more than twice its average monthly rate for the year so far.
The 10 are among 27 judicial nominees who have won the backing of the Senate Judiciary Committee and are awaiting a final vote in the Senate, according to the BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.
The nominees include federal judge Henry Floyd, who has been nominated for a seat on the Richmond, Va.-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Jennifer Zipps, a federal magistrate who would succeed the late U.S. District Judge John Roll, who was killed in the January shooting in Tucson, Ariz. that wounded congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
The group also includes two picks for the high-profile U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York: former Cravath, Swaine & Moore partner Katherine Forrest, a lawyer in the Justice Department’s antitrust section; and Alison Nathan, a former associate counsel in the Obama White House, and six other district court nominees.
So far this year, the Senate has been considering about four nominees a month. But the White House and several liberal interest groups have been pressuring the Senate to move faster, citing the historically high vacancy rate on the federal bench.
The agreement was announced this week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev).
