Reid plans to hold extra sessions to move stalled judicial nominees

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is planning to hold sessions late into the night and on weekends to pressure Republicans to begin clearing a backlog of judicial nominees. 

Democrats criticized Republican holds on nominees at a press conference Tuesday, saying that 22 of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees are stalled on the Senate floor, even though many of them have passed through the Judiciary Committee with strong bipartisan support.
 
{mosads}The nominees have languished as Democratic leaders have focused on passing healthcare reform and jobs legislation, letting Republican filibusters of judicial nominees go largely unchallenged, the senators noted.
 
Obama’s judicial nominees have waited an average of nearly 120 days between approval by the Judiciary panel and consideration on the Senate floor.
 
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is pressing Reid to keep Republicans on the Senate floor late into the night to pressure them to allow up-or-down votes on the nominees.

Reid used such a tactic before the Easter recess when he instructed the Senate sergeant at arms to call lawmakers to the chamber late into the evening to discuss extending unemployment benefits. Reid has threatened to hold weekend sessions before but several of those did not occur.
 
“The pattern of obstruction and delay in the Senate’s consideration of these nominations and especially judicial nominations is completely unprecedented,” said Leahy, who spoke to reporters Tuesday.
 
Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), vice chairman of the Senate Democratic Conference, said: “We hope our Republican colleagues will let more nominees through.
 
“If not, we’re going to rev it up,” Schumer said. “We’re going to stay in as long as it takes, even if it means nights, weekends to get these nominees through.”
 
Schumer said Reid is responding to the frustration of Leahy, who has argued that former President George W. Bush’s nominees received floor votes much sooner after committee approval.
 
“Sen. Leahy has expressed his outrage about this over and over again on the floor and in committee and I think Sen. Reid has heard that and wants to rev it up,” Schumer said.