The Senate today confirmed three of President Obama’s judicial nominees as the result of an agreement between Senate Democrats and Republicans. The nominees, Marco A. Hernandez, Paul Kinloch Holmes, and Diana Saldana, are the first of President Obama’s judicial nominees to be confirmed by the new Congress, and all three were approved with broad bipartisan support.

Marge Baker of People For the American Way issued the following statement:

“These confirmations represent a step in the right direction, but we have a long way to go to repair the broken confirmation process.  Even after these nominees are confirmed, there are 99 vacancies on the federal bench—more than one in every nine seats.  In the last Congress, Republican obstruction prevented far too many of these seats from being filled by well qualified jurists, and ordinary Americans were the ones who paid for it.  Courts play a critical role in protecting the rights of individual citizens and in holding corporations accountable.

“Senators of both parties should reject efforts to throw sand into the gears of government by grinding the judicial confirmation process to a halt.  Today’s actions were a good start.  Moving forward, we hope this display of responsibility becomes the rule, not the exception.”

###