Senate confirmation of President Obama’s nominees slowed to a halt this election year, a common political occurrence for the final months of divided government with a Democratic president and a Republican-controlled Senate.
The vacancy on the Supreme Court attracted the most attention as Republicans refused to even hold confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland, insisting that the choice to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February rests with the next president.
Senate Democrats, along with some Republicans who want to fill vacancies in their home states, are pushing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to hold confirmation votes in the lame-duck session between the election and the end of the year.
The Senate has confirmed 329 of Obama’s federal judicial nominees to lifetime appointments; 326 federal judges were confirmed under Bush.
