Senate Judiciary Committee holds nominee hearings during recess, and Dems are pissed
For all the Democrat complaining, no one is stopping them from attending and asking questions.
You may recall that just after Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, Democrats agreed to confirm 15 federal judicial nominees in exchange for Mitch McConnell putting the Senate in recess so that vulnerable Senate Dems could return home to campaign.
#TheResistance was upset. While they can’t stop nominees, they demand resistance for resistance sake. But Senate Democrats had other priorities.
So Senate recess was a time for Republicans to halt the judicial confirmation train from rollin’ down the tracks?
Not.
Before you can get to a floor vote, you need a Committee vote. And before you can get a Committee vote, you need a Committee hearing.
So, the Senate Judiciary Committee has continued to hold hearings on nominees. lining up more Committee votes for just after the midterms.
Nina Totenberg at NRP writes, Trump, Republicans Continue Remaking The Federal Courts — Even As Senate On Recess:
… And now, for the first time, the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding confirmation hearings during a Senate recess, over the objections of the minority party.
No other Senate committee has been holding hearings during the current recess. But for judicial nominees, the Senate confirmation train keeps on running — even though, and likely because, Senate Democrats can’t be there. The Democrats and allied independents are defending 26 seats in next month’s elections and have to campaign during the final weeks before the midterms.
This week, just two senators — Republicans Orrin Hatch of Utah, who is retiring, and Mike Crapo of Idaho — showed up at the hearing for two appeals court nominees. The senators excused the nominees after just 19 minutes, several minutes of which were consumed by one controversial nominee talking about his wife, parents, children and even his cat.
Hatch, who chaired the Judiciary Committee for eight years, never held a recess hearing for a federal judge nominee. When asked this week why Republicans went ahead this time, he said, “We have to move ahead, and if they’re not cooperating, you just go ahead.”
Jennifer Bendery at Huff Po notes that Democrats may have shot themselves in the foot by agreeing to these dates before they knew there would be a recess, Senate’s Out? Nobody’s Around? Perfect Time To Advance Trump’s Court Picks, Says GOP.:
Not a single Democrat could attend either hearing. Only one other Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah), was present. That means, between those two hearings, that three of Trump’s circuit court nominees and seven of his district court nominees sailed through without any real questions. The committee will likely vote to advance their nominations sometime after the elections….
In his opening remarks in last week’s hearing, Kennedy read aloud a statement from Grassley suggesting that the top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), had given the green light to move forward with hearings without Democrats.
“The ranking member not only agreed to hold hearings on Oct. 10, Oct. 17 and Oct. 24, but she also specifically agreed not to object to the timing of these hearings,” Kennedy said.
That’s not so, says Feinstein spokesman Tom Mentzer.
“We were scheduled to be in session at that point,” Mentzer told HuffPost. “At no time was there an agreement to do this during recess.” …
Grassley spokesman Taylor Foy said Wednesday that the hearing schedule was set weeks ago, and that Feinstein did not make her agreement contingent on the Senate being in session. He pointed to a letter Grassley sent to committee Democrats last week saying he was tired of postponing hearings.
“It would be unfair to nominees to change the schedule at the last minute after they’ve made their travel arrangements to Washington for their hearing,” said Foy.
For all the Democrat complaining, no one is stopping them from attending and asking questions. They just have other priorities.
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Broken record, still
– Judges
– Not Hillary
– Everything esle is gravy
Kudos to Congress on moving this through…..
A tweet by Drew McCoy as seen on Instapundit:
“You …. radicalized Lindsey Graham and made him a hero to a lot of the people on the right”
“Do you know how INSANE that is?”
A tweet by Drew McCoy as seen on Instapundit:
“You …. radicalized Lindsey Graham and made him a hero to a lot of the people on the right”
“Do you know how INSANE that is?”
———————————–
I really have to wonder if they understand the anger in fly over America. They keep being so stupid.
I hope they ram more judges through and they’re activist right wing judges in the mold of those left wingers we’ve had to deal with. I can’t but help laughing at the dems whining.
LOL.The whole conservative nation is thrilled with Graham. He slashes and burns where the Never Trumpers want, and we all are OK with that.
Don’t underestimate the effect on Graham of McCain being six feet under.
Graham reverted to form like a day after the Kavanaugh confirmation.
Eight more days before the Dems have a full-fledged nervous breakdown. How do you go from a state of permanent rage to….. what? Should be EPIC!
“”How do you go from a state of permanent rage to….. what?””
Rioting in the streets? No, they’ve already tried that. Beat up a few octogenarians? Been there, done that. Send out a bunch of fake mail bombs? No, some nut already beat them to that, too. Shoot up a GOP baseball practice? Nope, been done. Looks like they’ll just have to go back to rioting in the streets – unless, of course, they think about boycotting the 2020 election. That’d work.
The New Weathermen?
They could always blow up a tenement in Greenwich Village.
Do you mean to say that they will just have to revert back to burning down their own cities, looting their on minority owned stores, (after which they will complain when the local supper market chooses to close up and relocate), and terrorize their own citizens?
Don’t forget that the Senate democrats created this log jam of nominations by stalling for the last two years. They have no one to blame but themselves. It is great to see the GOP deploying a tactic that the Dems would use, fighting fire with fire.
I am concerned that a judicial candidate owns a cat.
I’m just glad there was no DEm there to ask if he liked grabbing …
Oh nevermenind.
Hey, daddy-o… It is, like, a cool cat?
That is the proper way to deal with Democrats. Just bulldoze them out of the way and drink their tears.
Democratic Senators Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Patrick Leahy, Dick Durbin, Christopher Coons, and Richard Blumenthal are not up for re-election this year. Why aren’t they in Washington for the hearings? The taxpayers are paying for them to do their job, it seems to me they should be in Washington to do the job they are paid to do.
Someone has to make sure the living impaired get out to vote.
“Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Patrick Leahy, Dick Durbin, Christopher Coons, and Richard Blumenthal…”
You just named everything pathetic and tragic about the United States Senate.
Democrats have proven that they don’t care WHO is nominated, they’re just going to bitch and whine about it and not vote for them.
This sends FINALLY sends a crystal clear message – we are done catering to your bad faith bullshit. If you’re not going to vote for them anyway we don’t care what you think.
Nina Totenberg at NRP writes
NRP?
Nerp, indeed !
The Democrats and allied independents are defending 26 seats in next month’s elections and have to campaign during the final weeks before the midterms.
“Allied independents” . . . doesn’t sound all that “independent” to me.
Now there are nine D’rats on Judiciary. Four are up for re-election, and all of them are from solidly Democratic hellholes and are almost certainly safe. So, why are none of the nine at work in Washington?
The Dems are pissed???
History starts anew every morning. History tells us Grassely and Feinstein worked very well together. History tells us that Feinstein released some documents about the Russia case without consulting Grassley, not cool…then Kavanaugh. Feinstein sat on Fords accusations for 7 weeks. Refused to inform the Chairman, leaked the accusations at the 11th hour. Suborned perjury from Ford in an outlandish gambit to sink Kavanaugh… and the Dems are pissed??
Grassley/DiFi only “worked well together” when Grassley was kissing her kiester. Now that he is doing his job, they don’t work well together. Such is the leftist history that is being written.
In honor of Justice Kavanaugh and Senator Grassley, I’ll be enjoying a beer or two with my popcorn on election night.
Why would the D’s show up?
They’re all going to vote NO anyway, and its not like they bother reading any of the background material on any of the Judges appearing before them. All they ever do is grandstand for the cameras to help their next election campaign.
They’re just pissed that their 30 hours per nominee, that they’ve insisted on, is ticking away even when they’re out campaigning. All they really want to do here is stop the clock.
RE: “Senate Judiciary Committee holds nominee hearings during recess, and Dems are pissed”
That’s a mighty good thing!
Grassley just put his boot up Feinstein’s ass.
“For all the Democrat complaining, no one is stopping them from attending and asking questions. They just have other priorities.”
Even if you take out DiFi, Corey Booker is not running for re-election this year. Nor are several other Democrats, who could be there. But instead they let their leftist mouthpieces, the MSM (but I am redundant), complain in their yellow rags that there is an insidious plot by Grassley. ROTFLMAO. Whine on, DiFi.
Ever since McCain’s death the Republican Senators, especially Graham, are acting as if they grew a pair. Just wondering?