Politics
Obama nominates 3 to US appeals court- challenges Republicans to approve his picks
U.S. President Barack Obama and his judicial nominees. PHOTO/Evan Vucci/AP
Issuing a forceful challenge to Senate Republicans, President Barack Obama nominated three judges to the influential federal appeals court in Washington, declaring that the GOP has “cynically used Senate rules and procedures” to delay and block past nominees.
“What I’m doing today is my job; I need the Senate to do its job,” he said as he announced his nomination of Patricia Ann Millett, Cornelia Pillard and Robert Leon Wilkins on Tuesday in the White House Rose Garden.
In simultaneously naming three nominees to the understaffed federal appeals court in Washington, Obama set up an aggressive push against Senate Republicans who are trying to keep him from naming any more judges to the influential circuit.
It’s the first time Obama has ever held an event to announce nominees to the federal bench other than the Supreme Court, an indication of the pressure the president is trying to put on the Senate to approve his picks.
“There is no reason aside from politics for Republicans to block these individuals from getting an up or down vote,” he said.
Pillard is a Georgetown University law professor. Millet is an appeals lawyer in Washington, and Wilkins is a judge on the U.S. District Court in Washington. They would fill three vacancies currently on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, often called the second-highest court in the nation because of its influence.
Obama described Pillard’s career as one marked “by an unshakeable commitment to the public good.” He said Millet is “one our nation’s finest appellate attorneys” and praised Wilkins as a “principled attorney of the utmost integrity.”
