Democrats in Senate Stall Judicial Nominations.

WASHINGTON (November 8, 2003) - - The Democratic minority in the U.S. Senate is preventing up-and-down votes on an increasing number of President Bush's nominees to federal courts of appeal who will not commit to support abortion. The courts of appeal are just one level down from the U.S. Supreme Court.

To date, four nominees have been denied up-and-down votes by filibusters.

One of these nominees, Miguel Estrada, the first Hispanic nominated for a seat on the prestigious U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, withdrew his name from further consideration on September 4. Other judicial nominees are being threatened with such filibusters or obstructed by other methods.

Under the Constitution, only a majority vote is required for the Senate to confirm a presidential nominee. However, under Senate rules, unlimited debate is permitted on most issues, unless the Senate votes to "invoke cloture" and thereby end the debate. Cloture requires the votes of 60 of the 100 senators.

This year, the Senate has conducted 11 cloture votes on disputed judicial nominations. All 51 Republican senators have supported ending each filibuster, but no more than four Democratic senators have voted for cloture on any disputed nomination.

Forty-four Democratic senators have supported continuing the filibusters on each and every disputed nominee. Therefore, none of the filibusters have been broken.

The four nominees who have been denied up-and-down confirmation votes by these filibusters are Miguel Estrada; Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen and U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering, both nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit; and Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor, nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.