Trump demands the Senate stop doing its job confirming judges before he takes office
President-elect Donald Trump has urged Republican senators to grind the business of the upper chamber to a halt to stop Democrats from confirming any more judges before the end of President Joe Biden’s term.
Senate Democrats held votes late into the night on Monday to confirm Biden’s picks to the federal bench.
“The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door. Republican Senators need to Show Up and Hold the Line — No more Judges confirmed before Inauguration Day!” Trump said Tuesday in a post on Truth Social.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urged colleagues on the floor of the Senate Monday to confirm as many nominees as possible before the new year. This could prompt Democratic leadership to hold weekend and Christmas recess votes.
Republicans tried to slow down proceedings by pushing Democrats to conduct votes on procedural motions.
The White House slammed Senate Republicans and its incoming leader, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, noting that one of Thune’s priorities before the end of Trump’s first term was to confirm judicial nominees.
“Regardless of party, the American people expect their leaders to fight for the rule of law and to ensure the criminal justice system can function effectively in every state,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said, according to The Hill. “Delaying the confirmation of highly qualified, experienced judges takes a real-life toll on constituents and leads to backlogs of criminal cases — meaning Senator Thune was correct in 2020 when he said senators have every urgent reason to continue working together in good faith to staff the federal bench.”
He added: “There is no excuse for choosing partisanship over enforcing the rule of law.”
In an op-ed in Time magazine just after the election, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote that Schumer “must use every minute of the end-of-year legislative session to confirm federal judges and key regulators—none of whom can be removed by the next President.”
The Senate confirmed 234 of Trump’s nominees to Article III courts during his first term. The Article III courts include the Supreme Court, federal appeals courts, district courts, and the U.S. Court of International Trade.
Biden is catching up to Trump, with the Senate confirming 217 of his nominees so far. There are currently 45 vacancies and 15 nominees awaiting action, according to the Judicial Conference.
“If Sen. Schumer thought Senate Republicans would just roll over and allow him to quickly confirm multiple Biden-appointed judges to lifetime jobs in the final weeks of the Democrat majority, he thought wrong,” Thune told Fox News Digital.