The Senate is poised for a renewed fight over executive and judicial nominations, including President Barack Obama's three picks for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced today he will move forward on "a number of vital nominations" before Thanksgiving. Republicans have systematically delayed or blocked "scores of President Obama's judicial and executive branch nominations" despite an agreement earlier this year, Reid said on the Senate floor. "Obstruction has reared its ugly head. And we have a backlog now," Reid said. "It's time to move forward without delay and fill those crucial posts." He did not identify by name any particular nominee. Republicans have continuously vowed to oppose Obama's three nominees for the D.C. Circuit—Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld partner Patricia Millett, Georgetown University Law Center professor Cornelia Pillard and U.S. District Judge Robert Wilkins. It's unclear, however, how far Republicans will go to block the nominations once they reach the Senate floor. While Reid did not specifically mention the D.C. Circuit nominees, there are other signs the battle is heating up over the nominees to the key appeals court. Experts who watch the judicial confirmation process say they expect Reid to make a move on the D.C. Circuit as soon as this week. The House Judiciary Committee, which does not have a say in the judicial confirmation process, is holding a hearing Tuesday about the D.C. Circuit entitled "Are More Judges Always the Answer?" (The committee's chairman has already answered that question in the negative.) Seven Republican attorneys general, including Greg Abbott from Texas, sent a letter to the Senate today urging support for a Republican bill that would remove the three open seats from the D.C. Circuit. The letter accuses Obama of filling the D.C. Circuit vacancies "to slant the playing field sharply in his favor with regard to challenges to his aggressive regulatory agenda." "Using judicial vacancies to promote a political agenda undermines the rule of law and threatens to erode public confidence in our courts—something that Republicans and Democrats alike should seek to avoid," the letter states. A Senate Judiciary Committee vote is scheduled for Thursday on Wilkins' nomination. After that vote, all three nominees are expected to be awaiting confirmation votes on the Senate floor. Wilkins' nomination is expected to be approved in the committee along party lines, just like Millett and Pillard's committee votes. There are seven district court judges awaiting action on the Senate floor, according to progressive judicial group Alliance for Justice. Reid would likely move the D.C. Circuit nominees one at a time and in regular order, according to lawyers who are closely monitoring the nomination and confirmation process. The first vote, then, would be for Millett, who has argued 32 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. No senators have disputed that Millett has the credentials and experience to serve on a bench that's often considered the nation's second highest court. "This is a priority for Leader Reid," said Michelle Schwartz, director of justice programs at Alliance for Justice. "I think he's been clear about that. This could happen quickly because I think it's important to him to move these nominees quickly." The scope of the obstruction determines what could happen next — possibly Democrats threatening to use the so-called "nuclear option" to change long-standing Senate rules to strip the ability of Republicans to filibuster nominations. The Senate averted a move to change the filibuster rules this summer by striking a deal on some executive nominations, including controversial National Labor Relations Board nominees. Everything will be on the table if Republicans prevent votes on other nominations such as the D.C. Circuit nominees, Schwartz said. "There's going to be a lot of frustration in the Democratic Party, that the deal from the summer was about specific nominees but more broadly about this issue," Schwartz said. "We're also in a moment where Republicans have an opportunity to show whether they want to be a party of preventing government from functioning or want to be a party that has learned something form the last two weeks and wants to move forward." Republican opposition has been constant and strong since Obama announced the D.C. Circuit nominations simultaneously in a Rose Garden ceremony. Several Republicans say the eight D.C. Circuit judges — split evenly between Democrat and Republican appointees if you don't count senior judges — can handle the current caseload. Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), when asked about any plans to filibuster the D.C. Circuit floor votes, said on Oct. 16: "We'll see how that all plays out." "I think none of them need to be confirmed, we don't need any of them," Sessions said in an interview after a vote on the government funding bill. "There's no financial justification for those three judges and I've reached the end of my rope on it." House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) will preside over a hearing Tuesday titled "Are More Judges Always the Answer?" "The drafters of the Constitution intended the federal judiciary to function as an impartial arbiter of the law," Goodlatte said in a statement. "Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is leading a campaign pushed by partisan and ideological organizations that is designed to tilt the balance of Circuit Courts of Appeals in order to stack the deck in favor of an expansive regulatory regime and against Americans who challenge the power of the central government." Senate Democrats, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), have said Republicans did not raise any concern about whether D.C. Circuit judges were needed in 2002, when there was a Republican president. President George W. Bush successfully appointed Thomas Griffith, Janice Rogers Brown and Brett Kavanaugh to the D.C. Circuit. "Now that it is a Democratic president making nominations to those same seats, Senate Republicans have dusted off their old arguments against filling vacancies on the D.C. Circuit," Leahy said in a September written statement for the committee. "They say one thing when President Clinton is in office, flip when the President is a Republican, and flop when the American people elect President Obama."
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