During the past several months, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy have clearly made judicial nominations a priority. Taking advantage of last year's rules change and standing up against GOP filibusters of every judicial nominee without exception, Senate Democrats have made great strides in addressing the vacancy crisis.

So far in 2014, the Senate has confirmed 50 federal circuit and district court judges. That's more than were confirmed during all of last year, or during the year before. With the Senate finally able to do its job, the number of current vacancies has gone down from 92 at the beginning of the year to 60 today. The number of current vacancies is lower than it has been since the earliest weeks of the Obama Administration, when the GOP began its mission of obstructing his judicial nominees.

None of this is because Republicans have suddenly ended their obstruction. Far from it: They have not consented to a single one of this year's confirmation votes. Of course, once their filibusters are beaten back, they usually vote to confirm the nominee overwhelmingly.

Next to be confirmed are a diverse group of 16 pending nominees fully vetted by the Judiciary Committee (11 of them voted out just this morning). Of these 16 nominees, 11 are women or people of color. They would add to the experiential and professional diversity on the bench, as well. For instance, Florida's Beth Bloom and Paul Byron, Georgia's Leigh Martin May, and Louisiana's John deGravelles have private practice experience representing injured plaintiffs; Missouri's Ronnie White and California's André Birotte bring experience as public defenders; Florida's Carlos Mendoza and Paul Byron served in the military as criminal defense lawyers in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army, respectively.

There is no reason not to have confirmation votes for all 16 of them before the long summer recess. If that happens, then the total number of current vacancies will drop into the 40s for the first time since before George W. Bush left office.

Every American has the right to protect their legal rights in a court of law, but judicial vacancies make that harder. Harry Reid, Patrick Leahy, and the Democrats are to be commended for making judicial confirmations such a high priority.