President Joe Biden’s justice nominees will have a slightly easier road ahead after Raphael Warnock’s re-election victory in the Georgia runoff gave Democrats an outright Senate majority for the next two years.
While Democrats have already been able to confirm Biden’s justice nominee relatively unencumbered by their current Senate lead made possible by Executive Branch control, a 51-seat majority will remove some of the hurdles they’ve encountered in making controversial decisions .
“We can breathe a sigh of relief,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) said at a news conference on Wednesday. “Obviously benching judges and nominees will be a lot easier.”
A majority on the floor and a likely numerical advantage on the Senate Judiciary Committee all but eliminates the chances of committee deadlocks and creates scope for unexpected absentees from voting that have arisen due to Covid-19 infections and other medical issues.
For the majority of lower court nominees, one seat makes no difference, said Lisa Holmes, a professor of political science at the University of Vermont who deals with judge nominations. “But if it comes to a big fight, certainly what the Democrats want is to have that one extra vote,” Holmes said.
Judicial nominations require only a simple majority to be confirmed, and Senate Democrats have so far voted in lockstep on those selections.
Only one judicial election required Vice President Kamala Harris’ help to break a tie, and it was only a vote to postpone her nomination after a standoff from committee. Harris cast the decisive vote when the Senate ruled 49-49 on a motion to deny Jennifer Sung’s nomination in the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last year.
However, absences and committee ties slowed some nominations. An apparent problem with the September vote count gave Democrats their first failed attempt at confirmation under Biden. Several nominees whose nominations were tied in committee have also waited months for a vote to move forward. The last committee tie came on December 1 with First Circuit nominee Julie Rikelman.
“There should be some time savings because you’re not being held back by the need to go through the discharge,” Sarah Binder, a political science professor at George Washington University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
A new inter-party organizational resolution will likely give the Democrats one seat more than the Republicans on the committee, Binder said. She noted that a one-seat difference in the Judiciary Committee has been common in past Senate splits of 51-49.
The Judiciary Committee is currently split 11-11. The next congress of the committee would probably be on 11/12. or 11.10. take place, she said.
– With the support of Nancy Ognanovich
