Dem
47
GOP
53
In the lame-duck session of Congress, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is trying to ram through as many judges as possible. Republicans are doing everything under the sun to obstruct them. Is it really necessary to have a roll call quorum call every 15 minutes? It isn't necessary, but it sure gums up the works. Republicans are doing it to the max. Ultimately, Schumer got worn down and made a deal in which he wouldn't try to confirm four circuit judges in return for the Republicans allowing 12 district judges to proceed quickly. It was probably a bad deal, since in January, Trump will ask the Heritage Foundation for the names of four very conservative district judges and then he will nominate them and the Senate will confirm them. Remember this name: Aileen Cannon. You might hear about her again next year. Circuit court judges are far more important than district judges because most cases end at the circuit level. The Supreme Court takes very few cases.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said: "They're requiring us to do every single step and take as long as we can. That's their prerogative under the rules." But Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) said: "You always have to be careful of what comes around, goes around." In other words, maybe the Republicans can block four or six or even 10 judges, but then when the Democrats start blocking the thousands of appointments Donald Trump needs to make in the next 4 years, it could be very painful. This might force the new Senate to do one of two things. First, Republicans might have to make deals with the Democrats by rejecting some of Trump's worst nominations in order to allow dozens of the least damaging ones though quickly. Some of the not-so-Trumpy senators might actually like this since it would give them cover to reject nominees they know are not suited for the job.
Second, the new majority leader, Sen. John Thune (R-SD), could go all-in and change the Senate rules to prevent the minority from blocking nominations. This would enrage the Democrats, but they couldn't do anything about it... except remember it. They know that the Republicans' 53-seat majority is not forever, and the incumbent party often takes a shellacking in the midterms. George W. Bush lost 6 Senate seats in 2006, Barack Obama lost 6 in 2010 and 9 in 2014. Donald Trump actually gained 2 seats in the Senate in 2018 due to a great map, but lost 40 seats in the House. If the Republicans changed the rules now, the next time the Democrats were in power, they would simply steamroll the Republicans. Cooler heads in the Republican conference know that, but Trump might try to force their hand. (V)