Print PDF

From NYT:

In a formal Rose Garden ceremony normally reserved for Supreme Court nominees and prominent cabinet members, Mr. Obama announced plans to nominate three people to fill the remaining vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The president called on Republicans to abandon what he called partisan obstruction of his judicial nominees and approve his nominees quickly.

“This is not about principled opposition. It’s about partisan obstruction,” Mr. Obama said. “What’s happening now is unprecedented. For the good of the American people it has to stop.”

“What I’m doing today is my job,” Mr. Obama said as he announced the nominations. “What I need is the Senate to do its job.”

By nominating the judges as a group, the president is trying to restore what his allies consider to be ideological balance on a crucial court that has overturned some important parts of his first-term agenda. And he hopes to heighten public anger at Republicans for repeatedly using the threat of filibuster to block his choices for the cabinet and the courts.

…

The president named Cornelia T.L. Pillard, a law professor; Patricia Ann Millett, an appellate lawyer; and Robert L. Wilkins, a federal district judge, as his choices to fill the three open spots on the 11-member court. The three joined Mr. Obama in the Rose Garden on Tuesday morning.

(12)