Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is set to give Democrats a harsh reminder that elections have consequences on Wednesday as the Senate is expected to begin the process of confirming 13 judges to lifetime appointments on the federal courts.
The Senate Cloakroom, which is controlled by the Republicans, tweeted: “Under the regular order, at 10:30 am, on Wednesday, December 18th, the Senate will proceed to a roll call vote on the motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #382, Matthew Walden McFarland, of Ohio, to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio.”
The Senate Cloakroom continued: “Absent a unanimous consent agreement, two roll call votes (cloture/confirmation) will occur every two hours during tomorrow’s session of the Senate on the District Judge nominations (13 District Judges) that Leader McConnell filed cloture on during Monday’s session of the Senate.”
Absent a unanimous consent agreement, two roll call votes (cloture/confirmation) will occur every two hours during tomorrow’s session of the Senate on the District Judge nominations (13 District Judges) that Leader McConnell filed cloture on during Monday’s session of the Senate.
— Senate Cloakroom (@SenateCloakroom) December 17, 2019
Bloomberg Law reports that McConnell has the following judges on his schedule to confirm:
Matthew McFarland for the Southern District of Ohio;
Anuraag Singhal for the Southern District of Florida;
Karen Marston for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania;
Daniel Traynor for the District of North Dakota;
John M. Gallagher for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania;
Bernard Maurice Jones II for the Western District of Oklahoma;
Mary Kay Vyskocil for the Southern District of New York;
Kea Whetzal Riggs for the District of New Mexico;
Lewis J. Liman for the Southern District of New York;
Gary Richard Brown for the Eastern District of New York;
Robert J. Colville for the Western District of Pennsylvania;
Jodi Dishman for the Western District of Oklahoma;
Stephanie Dawkins Davis for the Eastern District of Michigan.
The move by McConnell comes as Democrats begin the process of impeaching President Donald Trump on Wednesday in a partisan effort over what they claim amounts to obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.
McConnell said on Tuesday that he intends to shut down Democrats’ attempts to remove the president because Democrats do not have the evidence needed to convict Trump in a Senate trial.
“I’m not an impartial juror. This is a political process. There’s not anything judicial about it,” McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. “The House made a partisan political decision to impeach. I would anticipate we will have a largely partisan outcome in the Senate. I’m not impartial about this at all.”
During a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday, McConnell said that Democrats’ impeachment efforts were “the most rushed, least thorough, and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history.”
“I’ll have much more to say to our colleagues and to the American people if and when the House does move ahead,” McConnell continued. “But as we speak today, House Democrats still have the opportunity to do the right thing for the country and avoid setting this toxic new precedent.”
“Chairman Adam Schiff and House Democrats actively decided not to go to court and pursue potentially useful witnesses because they didn’t want to wait for due process. Indeed, they threatened to impeach the President if they had to go to court at all,” McConnell noted. “That intentional, political decision is the reason why the House is poised to send the Senate the thinnest, least thorough presidential impeachment in our nation’s history.”
“The Senate is meant to act as judge and jury. To hear a trial. Not to re-run the entire fact-finding investigation because angry partisans rushed sloppily through it,” McConnell added. “The trajectory that the Democratic Leader apparently wants to take us down — before he’s even heard opening arguments — could set a nightmarish precedent for our institution.”
