Here Come De Conservative Judges - 4

The graph to the left (click to enlarge) is so simple that Fifth Graders can easily see that in 2008 when President Obama was elected, that filibusters by the Republicans in the U.S. Senate skyrocketed.

The vertical red line on the right side of the graph marks the beginning of the surge, circa 2008, in filibusters of everything, which will change now that the Senate will no longer allow filibusters of federal court nominees of the President.

A majority vote, a.k.a. an "up or down vote", will now suffice, which is sorely needed to fill federal court vacancies:

There are currently 92 vacancies on the federal district and appellate courts. With over 850 authorized judicial seats, this represents an 11 percent vacancy rate. This alarmingly high vacancy rate has persisted for over four years; indeed, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service recently determined that we are in the longest period of historically high vacancy rates in 35 years. In addition, over 41 percent of the existing vacancies (38) are in courts so overburdened that they have been designated "judicial emergencies" by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

(The Vacancy Crisis in the Federal Judiciary, emphasis in original). The GOP had subverted the process, damaging the Judicial Branch of the federal government severely.

The power-mad Senate conservatives already have a conservative majority in the federal courts.

Conservative federal judges are at the highest percentage since the 1930's (e.g. Here Come De Conservative Judges, Conservative Judiciary vs Obama?, Foreign Citizens United v FEC).

Their bad-faith obstructionism had to be stopped, so the Senate's stopping it yesterday was way past due and was the appropriate thing to do.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.