Senate Adjourns Until November
By AndrewHyman Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The Senate adjourned at 2:30 AM this morning, and will meet again on November 9 for introduction of bills. To their credit, they passed the Secure Fence Act at the last minute, 80-19 (Cantwell and Menendez were among the 19 voting against). They also passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 day before yesterday. But it appears that the circuit court nominations of Kent Jordan and Randy Smith did not come up for votes, even though they were pending before the full Senate. And of course a bunch of circuit court nominees are still stuck in committee, as described in these links:
On September 28, former Attorney General Edwin Meese gave a speech at Campbell University in North Carolina. Meese critricized the new obstacle course that nominees now have to navigate:
It's discouraging for potential nominees for federal court who don't want to go through the process.
Meese is right. This 109th Senate has allowed the advice and consent process to deteriorate further than ever before. They get credit for confirming two Supreme Court justices, but circuit court nominees are now being subjected to unprecedented obstruction by the minority, on a scale never seen at any time in the past. Let's hope for some firm and decisive action in the lame duck session.
Sorry
by BoBo
Sorry, Andrew, I forgot to read all the links before commenting.
The updated executive calendar is missing Randy Smith's name. Since there were no judicial confirmations last night, that can only mean one thing - his nomination was sent back to the White House. If his nomination was sent back, I'm pretty sure the nominations of Boyle, Myers, Haynes and Wallace were also sent back. The only question I have now is whether Keisler's nomination was also sent back.
Also, here is a Richmond Times-Dispatch article about yesterday's executive meeting:
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149190899576&path=!news&s=1045855934842
I already linked that article in the post, Bobo. Andrew