Texas Sen. John Cornyn
After months and months of committee and floor delays, the
Senate confirmed Alfred Bennett to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. That vote was 95-0. There was no opposition, and yet it took 207 days to happen. He's filling a seat that had been vacant for 769 days, and qualified as a "judicial emergency" because of the heavy caseload judges on that court carry—430 to 600 cases for more than 18 months. Of course, that doesn't mean Republican obstruction of Obama nominees has stopped.
Republicans have been slow-walking action on Obama's judicial nominees ever since they took control of the Senate in January—even if that has meant jamming their own nominees. Bennett, for example, has had the support of his home-state senators, John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), yet has endured committee delays and floor vote delays for weeks. Two other Texas nominees are ready for votes and could easily have been scheduled for Monday, but were not. All three were first nominated in September.
Another Utah judicial nominee is ready for a vote, and has the support of Utah's GOP Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee, but did not get scheduled for a vote.
All of these nominees could have been confirmed last year, during the lame duck session. But
Republicans blocked them, claiming that passing them during lame duck would catch them up in "unnecessary, partisan politics." The same unnecessary partisan politics that prevented Bennett from reaching the floor for four months once Republicans took over.