Judge’s confirmation one of many stalled

In December, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 16-3 in support of the nomination of U.S. District Judge Thomas I. Vanaskie to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Clarks Green resident’s nomination was sent to the full Senate awaiting a confirmation vote. More than two months later, no action has been taken.

President Barack Obama nominated Vanaskie to the seat on the nation’s second-highest court on Aug. 7. That court reviews rulings by federal judges in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and the Virgin Islands.

The lack of action is not indicative of any issues the Senate might have with the nomination, it’s just par for the course, of late.

“Tom Vanaskie is eminently qualified to serve on the Third Circuit, as is evidenced by his extraordinary 16-year record on the Middle District and the overwhelming bipartisan support he received from the Senate Judiciary Committee,” said Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Philadelphia. “Unfortunately, his appointment, like so many of this administration’s, has been stalled by political posturing to the collective detriment of the nation.”

Specter was one of the 16 senators on the committee to cast a vote in favor of Vanaskie, and the legislator said he’ll continue to support Vanaskie’s candidacy and will work to move it along.

“Judge Vanaskie merits a full vote by the Senate at the earliest possible occasion, and I am pushing to get that done,” the senator said.

Just last Tuesday, the Senate voted 84-0 to confirm a federal judge from New Jersey to fill an open seat on the same court Vanaskie’s been nominated for.

Judge Joseph A. Greenaway Jr., a federal district judge who presided in Newark, was nominated by Obama in June. The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved him Oct. 1, two months before Vanaskie’s nomination was considered by the same panel.

Larry Smar, a spokesman for Sen. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, said “Judge Vanaskie is an extremely well-qualified nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.”

“He is on track for confirmation by the full Senate. The difficulties in moving nominees through the Senate in the past year have been well documented. We hope that Judge Vanaskie can be quickly confirmed by the full Senate.”

According to a story in the Newark Star-Ledger last week, dozens of judicial nominations have been stalled in the Senate. Obama has nominated 42 federal district and appellate judges since being elected; just 15 of those, including Greenaway, have been confirmed.

In 2009, there were more than 100 filibusters, affecting 70 percent of Senate action. As a result, last year, the Senate confirmed the fewest number of judicial nominees in the first year of a presidency in more than a half-century: only nine.

There are currently 14 judicial nominees, including Vanaskie, who have made it through the committee vote and are awaiting confirmation by the Senate. One has been waiting since October. While partisan politics plays a role, it’s not anything new.

The seat Greenaway fills has been vacant for nearly four years and was last held by Samuel Alito, now a Supreme Court Justice. President George W. Bush nominated a successor, but it was blocked by Senate Democrats until Obama took office and nominated Greenaway.

If Vanaskie’s nomination is approved by the Senate, it would create a third vacancy on the federal bench in the U.S. Middle District, which serves a wide swath of the state that includes 34 counties. Two openings were created earlier this year when judges James M. Munley and A. Richard Caputo opted to go into senior-judge status.

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Filibusters slow U.S. Senate in approving jurists, including Vanaskie of Clarks Green.

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