Senate advances six judicial nominations

The Senate voted all morning to advance six judicial nominations on Tuesday.

{mosads}Democrats were able to end debate on the nominees with just a simple majority instead of the 60 votes that were needed before the filibuster rule change. 

Last year, Democrats used the “nuclear option” unilaterally changing the Senate rules to make it easily to advance most nominations. Republicans complained that this greatly reduced the minority party’s rights and have been stalling nominations ever since.

Final confirmation of the district court nominees isn’t expected until Wednesday at a time to be agreed upon by Senate leaders.

A list of the nominees and the cloture vote count follows:

– Sheryl Lipman to be a U.S. District Judge for Western Tennessee, 58-39

– Allen Bastian to be a U.S. District Judge for Eastern Washington, 55-41

– Manish Shah to be a U.S. District Judge for Northern Illinois, 57-40

– Daniel Crabtree to be a U.S. District Judge for Kansas, 57-39

– Cynthia Bashant to be a U.S. District Judge for Southern California, 56-41

– Jon Levy to be a U.S. District Judge for Maine, 63-34