Indeed, the Senate Democrats who were most vocal in support of the rules change did include a cadre of newer members who haven’t served in the minority. Their arguments in favor of the change took hold this week, particularly as some of their weary, more experienced colleagues felt they had no other options.
“I feel like we’ve been forced into it, and I think it’s terribly unfortunate,” Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said. “You can’t decide you want to remove judges from a circuit without getting a law passed to reduce the number of judges on that circuit. You don’t get to block nominees in order to effect legislative policy, and that’s what they’re trying to do.”
A number of Democrats are thrilled that, as they put it, the fever has been broken and they can move on to confirm judges that hadn’t been blocked because of their qualifications, but because Republicans objected to Obama filling the court with his choices. “I’m not afraid of democracy,” said retiring Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.
“Not uneasy at all. Happy about it,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. “I’ve been supportive of it for a long time. It took us awhile to get the whole caucus there. I am thrilled to get the Senate back to work.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member