Senate Dems step up judicial wars

http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-congress/2012/07/senate-dems-step-up-judicial-wars-130243.html

Democratic leaders are ratcheting up the judicial wars in the Senate, taking direct aim at Republicans who have threatened to block any high-level court nominees until the November elections.

On Thursday, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) filed a procedural motion to bring up the nomination of Robert Bacharach of Oklahoma to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, daring Republicans to block a nominee supported by both parties. Sixty votes would be needed on Monday evening to prevent a filibuster from derailing the nomination.

Reid's move could fail because Republicans have invoked the so-called Thurmond Rule, an informal custom in the Senate in which the opposition party prevents the president from getting any more high-level nominees confirmed to lifetime spots in the final months before the elections. Democrats argue that the move unfairly would block several consensus nominees to appeals courts, including Bacharach, who is supported by the Republican senators from his state.