The Senate Judiciary Committee today reported out five new judicial nominees and the Senate confirmed three, bringing to 27 the total number of nominees still waiting for a vote from the full Senate. This puts the nominations backlog back to where it was last month before Majority Leader Harry Reid pushed through votes on ten nominees who received broad bipartisan support.
“Senator Reid took an important step last month when he stood up to Republican obstructionism and pressured the Senate to confirm ten highly qualified judicial nominees,” said Marge Baker of People For the American Way. “Unfortunately, since then the nominations backlog has returned to its previous size. The Senate should make it a priority to completely clear the current nominations backlog. Holding a vote on all 27 nominees currently on the calendar would provide desperately needed assistance to strained courts throughout the country and demonstrate Congress’s ability to do its job.
“Senate Republicans have made a habit of delaying President Obama’s judicial nominees hostage for as long as possible. This obstructionism is bad for the American people, who depend on both an efficient justice system and an effective legislature. It’s time for the Senate to do its job and hold votes on these 27 nominees.”
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At this weekend’s Values Voter Summit, and again on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, former House speaker and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich stated that as president, he would urge Congress to subpoena federal judges whose decisions he disagreed with and even ignore Supreme Court rulings that he believes are wrong.
Congresswoman Donna Edwards (D-MD) and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI) introduced a constitutional amendment that would restore to Congress and the states the authority to regulate corporate spending on political activity, including contributions in support of or in opposition to a candidate for public office. This proposed amendment seeks to overturn the Supreme Court’s deeply flawed decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which granted corporations the same Free Speech rights as people to spend money to influence elections. The amendment is similar to one introduced in the last Congress, and was introduced with the support of 14 other co-sponsors.
“We applaud this bold step by Representatives Edwards and Conyers to place limits on the corporate spending on elections which is hurtling out of control. It is time that we take down the for sale sign on our democracy and constitutional remedies such as that proposed by Representatives Edwards and Conyers are the only meaningful way to do that,” said Marge Baker, executive vice president at People For the American Way. “Reversing the damage caused by Citizens United is absolutely crucial to making sure that the American people – and not the deepest-pocketed corporations – hold the keys to our democracy. The pro-corporate Supreme Court is taking us down a slippery slope, and it’s time for bold steps to preserve the democratic promise of government by the people.”
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced last night that agreement had been reached for the Senate to consider ten of President Obama’s judicial nominees over the next two weeks as part of a time agreement made with Senate Republicans. The move comes after months of Republican delay and obstruction created a backlog of 27 judicial nominees waiting for votes on the Senate floor. The vast majority of those nominees faced no opposition in the Judiciary Committee and had the support of their home state senators.
Campaigning in Florida today, Mitt Romney doubled down on his claim that “corporations are people.”
“I was in Iowa the other day, and people suggested that we just raise taxes on corporations,” Romney said, according to Politico. “I told them, corporations are people…Raising taxes on corporations is raising taxes on people.”