WASHINGTON – As President-elect Donald Trump plots his transition back to the Oval Office from his Mar-a-Lago perch, Senate Democrats have begun racing against the clock to confirm more than two dozen of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees before the lose their majority at the end of the year.
With time running out, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has made filling these judicial vacancies a key focus and is scheduling contentious late-night votes to help expedite the process.
“We’ll continue working to confirm these lifetime appointments,” Schumer said during a press conference on Tuesday. “This is too important, and we won’t let anything stand in our way.”
On Wednesday, Senate Democrats reached the milestone of 220 lifetime appointments to the federal judiciary under the Biden administration, edging closer to the 234 judges appointed by Trump. As they head into the Thanksgiving break, lawmakers are staying focused on confirming more nominees.
Senators stayed late into the night on Wednesday, voting cloture for several nominations, with a final confirmation vote for Sharad Desai as district judge for the District of Arizona scheduled for Thursday.
Schumer also has nearly half a dozen more nominees lined up for Senate approval, though their confirmations are expected to occur after the holiday.
Meanwhile, Republican senators — particular those involved in Trump’s transition team — have faced growing criticism for their absence from judge votes.With Vice President Kamala Harris on vacation in Hawaii and unavailable to break ties, some Republicans hoped a full turnout could help slow or block certain confirmations.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he’s frustrated with some of his colleagues who haven’t cast a vote on every nominee. He’s worried about the longterm consequences of having liberal-leaning judges across the country, especially if Republicans could’ve prevented their confirmations.
“Ninety percent of success in life is showing up. We could have stopped those 18 votes after that first vote if we had shown up that day,” Tillis said.
In response to the criticism, Vice President-elect JD Vance took to X (formerly Twitter) with a post he later deleted: “When this 11th Circuit vote happened, 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. But that’s just me,” he wrote.
Speaking directly about Vance, Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Mike Braun, R-Ind., Tillis said he doesn’t care that they are working for their new positions.
“They’re U.S. senators today,” Tillis said. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to make damn sure we’re all there at the strike of the gavel. It’s that simple.”
Braun and Sen.Ted Cruz, R-Texas, both missed two votes Wednesday morning, which would have led to a tie if they had been present. With independent Sen. Joe Manchin aligning with Republicans, the Senate voted 50-48 to confirm Rebecca L. Pennell as a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, and 50-48 to invoke cloture on the nomination of Amir H. Ali as a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Cruz said that he was returning from Texas during the vote, where he attended the Space X launch with President-elect Trump and Elon Musk Tuesday.
Trump weighed in on the controversy Wednesday afternoon, calling on full attendance from Republican senators via his Truth Social.
“Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line,” he wrote.
Republican senators received the message and showed up to vote and stayed in the chamber until after midnight Wednesday, though they were unable to block any confirmations as the minority.
