{"id":9641,"date":"2015-06-07T02:20:05","date_gmt":"2015-06-07T02:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9641"},"modified":"2016-02-16T14:10:41","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T14:10:41","slug":"mcconnell-may-not-block-judge-picks-after-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9641","title":{"rendered":"McConnell may not block judge picks after all"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;m not going to be so terribly presumptuous to assume that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell read High Plains Blogger recently and may be reacting to its &#8212; I mean <em>my<\/em> &#8212; assertion that gridlock regarding judicial appointments is bad for the nation.<\/p>\n<p>Still, I am heartened to hear that despite what McConnell told a radio talk show host, he really and truly doesn&#8217;t have plans to block all future circuit court and Supreme Court appointments during the remainder of President Obama&#8217;s administration.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/senate\/244196-mcconnell-backs-away-from-judicial-shutdown-talk\">http:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/senate\/244196-mcconnell-backs-away-from-judicial-shutdown-talk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The president has a number of circuit judge appointments pending in the Senate, which must approve them before the judges take their lifetime seats. A McConnell spokesman said the majority leader really didn&#8217;t say all those appointments were toast. They&#8217;d get a hearing and a vote, he said.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve noted already that presidents deserve to select judicial appointees to their liking. That&#8217;s a consequence of national elections and Barack Obama has won two of them, in a row.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s still no word yet on what the Senate would do about a Supreme Court vacancy should one occur. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is said to be in poor health, but she says she isn&#8217;t retiring. She&#8217;s one of the liberals on the court. Her departure and a replacement wouldn&#8217;t shift the balance of power, at least theoretically.<\/p>\n<p>If a <em>conservative<\/em> justice were to leave the court, well, that&#8217;s another matter.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, the threat of locking down all future Obama appointments appears now to be lessening.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m left to wonder: Did the majority leader actually see my blog?<\/p>\n<p><em>Nah<\/em>. Couldn&#8217;t be &#8230; but it&#8217;s fun to wonder.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m not going to be so terribly presumptuous to assume that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell read High Plains Blogger recently and may be reacting to its &#8212; I mean my &#8212; assertion that gridlock regarding judicial appointments is bad for the nation. Still, I am heartened to hear that despite what McConnell told a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9641\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">McConnell may not block judge picks after all<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13,14],"tags":[540,992,1708,2122,2598,3099,4056,4472,4980],"class_list":["post-9641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-circuit-courts","tag-federal-judiciary","tag-high-plains-blogger","tag-judicial-appointments","tag-mitch-mcconnell","tag-ruth-bader-ginsburg","tag-supreme-court","tag-u-s-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12980,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9641\/revisions\/12980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}