The move would delay four nominees who were already approved. GOP blocks judicial nominees

Senate Republicans will block all of President Barack Obama’s high-level judicial nominees until after the election— a move that would also thwart an ally of a rising GOP star, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

In keeping with a long-running practice employed by a Senate minority in an election year, Republicans will prevent Obama’s appeals court nominees from winning lifetime confirmations on the federal bench until after the November elections. The move would delay four nominees who were already approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, including Patty Shwartz, whom Christie strongly backed for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.


In an interview with POLITICO, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said now was the appropriate time to employ the so-called “Thurmond Rule,” named after the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.). That informal rule holds that sitting presidents should not get Senate votes on lifetime appointments to the bench in the months leading up to a presidential election.

“We’ve reached about that point,” McConnell said in an interview. “I think it’s important to underscore, the only thing the other side is adversely impacted by would be a delay of six months.

“And this has been the case for 30 years that when we we’re at this stage in the presidential election year, both sides have kind of agreed no matter which side is in the majority that you have a pause in circuit judges,” the Republican leader said. “But the person who wins the election – which could very well be a current occupant – gets to make the appointment.”

The move — which was first reported by Roll Call on Thursday — does not yet apply to district court nominees.

Nevertheless, Democrats contend that the move was invoked far too prematurely compared to recent election cycles.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said that the “shutdown” should not stop qualified nominees from being approved until September, accusing the GOP of blatant obstruction.

“I have yet to hear a good explanation as to why we cannot work to solve the problem of high vacancies for the American people,” he said.

Not only would the move impact the Shwartz nomination, but it would also thwart Richard Taranto for the federal circuit, William Kayatta of Maine for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and Robert Bacharach of Oklahoma, who was nominated for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. All of the nominees sailed through the Judiciary Committee, and Bacharach and Kayatta even won the support of Republican senators from those states.

“I like him, I think he’s good, he’s acceptable, I’ve signed off on him,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said of Bacharach, who also won the endorsement of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.).

Shwartz — a federal magistrate judge in Newark — is an ally of Christie, and their careers overlapped at the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey between 2002 and 2003. Shwartz has also been in a relationship with the head of public corruption who worked under Christie as U.S. attorney. Shwartz’s boyfriend’s team investigated New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez in 2006, a move Menendez claimed was strictly designed to undermine his reelection bid at the time.

But along with Christie, both Menendez and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) now support the Shwarz nomination. And Lautenberg said the GOP decision to stall her nomination should concern Christie.

“It should mean something to him because he recommended her,” Lautenberg said Thursday when asked about Christie.

A Christie spokesman did not respond to requests seeking comment.

But in October 2011 — when Shwartz was nominated to the court — a Christie spokesman said the governor backed the nomination.

“Judge Patty Shwartz has committed her entire professional life to public service, and New Jersey is the better for it,” the Bergen Record quoted Christie, through a spokesman.

But Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said that Republicans were only following recent precedent, which Democrats employed when George W. Bush was president. The GOP calls the practice the “Leahy-Thurmond rule.”

Grassley added that he’s long been ready to block Democratic nominees after Obama infuriated the GOP with a series of recess appointments in January that Republicans said were unconstitutional.

”I thought January was the time [to block nominations] after we got screwed by the recess appointments,” Grassley said.