Warren: GOP waging ‘unrelenting campaign’ to block nominees

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in an op-ed on Monday blasted Republican colleagues for blocking Judge Merrick Garland and other Obama judicial nominees.

“Despite their statements and self-congratulatory videos to the contrary, when it comes to keeping the government staffed, Senate Republicans have flatly refused to do their jobs,” she wrote for CNN.

{mosads}“The latest example involves the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court,” Warren wrote. “It’s been over 80 days since President Obama nominated Judge Garland to fill the vacant seat on the Supreme Court.

“The idea that Senate Republicans are perfectly willing to leave our highest court short-handed for nearly a year is pretty shocking, but it shouldn’t be. For more than seven years, they have waged an unrelenting campaign to keep key positions throughout the government empty.”

Warren said the GOP is dragging its feet over confirming Garland in the hopes that one of its own will be elected president and pick someone else instead.

“Republicans have said they won’t consider anyone that Obama nominates to serve on the court,” she said. “They claim they want the ‘people’ to have a voice, but they refuse to accept that the people have already made their voices heard when they elected Barack Obama – twice.

“But that’s not the outcome Republicans wanted, so they want to just hold all those spots for the next president – someone they hope will be more like them.”

Warren also said Senate Republicans’ “stall-and-delay tactics” resulted in fewer district and circuit court judges being confirmed in Obama’s first term than in the first terms of the previous three presidents. 

“A majority of Obama’s uncontroversial first-term judicial nominees – those who were both reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee and confirmed by the full Senate overwhelmingly – took over 200 days to be confirmed,” she added.

“And since Republicans took charge of the Senate in 2015, judicial confirmations have virtually ground to a halt. According to the Alliance for Justice, Senate Republicans are ‘on pace for the lowest number of judicial confirmations in more than 60 years.’ “